Secret Wars
by Comorep677
Summary: There's a reason you don't find many heroes out west. Moving to Middleton for college, Peter Parker's presence as the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man in the stomping grounds of the world renowned Kim Possible destroys an uneasy truce between two factions operating underground to determine the fate of all Mutant-kind. It was only a matter of time.
1. Chapter 1

**I OWN NOTHING**

 **SO YEAH NEW STORY; THIS TAKES PLACE RIGHT AFTER SEASON FOUR OF KIM POSSIBLE, RON AND KIM ARE NOT TOGETHER, PETER AND MJ/GWEN STACY ARE NOT TOGETHER.**

 **ALSO, I DELETED THIS FOR A WHILE BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT I'D NEVER FINISH IT DUE TO SCHOOL/WORK, BUT I DECIDED THAT I COULDN'T NOT FINISH IT. IT'S THE SAME STORY, NOTHING CHANGES, EXCEPT FOR SOME MINOR CHANGES HERE AND THERE. WELCOME BACK!**

Peter backed into the driveway of his new home. He looked over to the passenger's seat, seeing his sweet, elderly aunt grinning from ear to ear.

"Are you excited, Peter?"

He had been accepted into Middleton Institute of Science and Technology's biochemistry program, the best in the world for what he wanted to study, with enough scholarship money to cover him for all four years of his undergraduate and then some. He would have been stupid to pass up that chance, but at the time he received his letter he was living all the way across the country. He couldn't just leave his aunt whom he owed the world to, so he compromised by bringing her too. He used what he saved from his pizza deliveries and newspaper photographs to pay for the move while his aunt paid for the shipping of their bigger items along with the house rent with her retirement funds. She needed to move anyway; the air in the inner city of New York was doing carnage to her lungs and being in the suburbs with fresh air and a neighborhood would do her some good. "I'm ecstatic," Peter said with a grin. He opened his car door; well, it was his aunt's old pick-up truck, but she was well past the age of driving. He took a look at his new home in the middle of the street. The neighbors' house to his left was on a very steep hill surrounded by lemon trees and a more golden-looking sidewalk due to the sun shining directly onto it. It quickly became apparent why the house Peter and May found was significantly cheaper than the other houses in the neighborhood. "Do you like it, Aunt May?"

May looked at the very stylish, two-story house with a white painted, smooth exterior with a large, beige garage door and two square windows under the slanted ceiling that led into the master and secondary bedroom. "I simply love it, Peter," she said, wiping off her forehead of sweat. "We must go inside; I have to get out of this heat. We are from New York, you know."

"I'll start carrying boxes then," Peter said, handing her a set of keys. "Why don't you go inside? Have a look around? The owner of this place left us his dining table, so sit in the kitchen when you're feeling tired, alright?"

"I'll call you when I'm done searching for problem," May said with a chuckle, tugging at Peter's cheek. "Now get to lifting; we don't have all day and you need to buy your books and make sure you know exactly where your classes are and-"

"I have a week until class begins, Aunt May," Peter said half laughing, "relax a little-"

"The faster we can get this done, the sooner we'll be touring campus!" May said, hobbling toward the sidewalk leading up to the front door next to the garage and inward about fifteen feet.

Peter watched May's frail, skinny body slowly make her way from the driveway to the door and enter the house. He turned back to the red pick-up truck still rumbling with automated anticipation and he stuck his hand in the driver's window, taking the car keys out and killing the engine. He looked at the back of the truck, seeing about twenty boxes stacked in an arrangement so he could still see out the back window. Yellow rope tied the boxes down. Peter looked up at the clear, sunny blue sky. "It's a shame that this won't take very long," he said under his breath, untying the rope and picking up a relatively large box from the center of the three frontal stacks. He turned around and started carrying it across the freshly cut lawn that parted into shrubbery hugging the sides of the garage leading up to the front door and small Dandelion patches leading between Peter and his neighbor's house to the fenced in backyards.

"Good afternoon, neighbor!" a man's voice from the neighbor's front lawn said cheerily. "Welcome to Colorado!"

Peter turned his head to the left and saw a tall, skinny, fair-skinned man in his early to mid forties with short brown hair said. He had blue eyes and a wide jaw; he wore a black and white suit without the jacket and a thin, black tie. The sleeves were rolled up from the wrist, just before his elbows. He instantly recognized the man and suddenly felt inadequate. "Doctor Possible?" Peter gasped. "It's such an honor to meet you!" Peter said with a grin, putting down his box for a moment. "I read all of your journals as a kid, joined ACS and attended every meeting you spoke at, attended all of your New York presentations-"

"It's good to see there are still fans of my work," Doctor Possible said with a pearly white grin.

"It's very nice to meet you, doctor," Peter said, sticking out his hand.

Doctor Possible received it and shook the young man's hand. Peter winced a little bit at the surprising firmness of the grip. "Sorry about that," the doctor chuckled, releasing the boy. "I have a bit of a strong handshake."

"Well, you gotta appreciate that," Peter said, shaking it off. "I'm Peter Parker."

"Peter Parker?" Possible said, rubbing his chin, "where have I heard that name before?" He glanced over Peter's head at the pile of boxes in the back of his truck. "You need some help there?"

"No, I got it," Peter said, "but thanks!"

"Are you sure?" the doctor said. "I've got a few minutes before I have to get to the lab."

Peter turned to look at the rest of the boxes. "I couldn't trouble you with that, doctor," Peter said.

"I'll just get the boys." A small grin stretched across his face. He turned toward his sleek, split-level house and up into the open window of the second floor. "Jim! Tim! Come down here and help out the new neighbor with a few boxes!"

Two preteens' brown-haired, blue-eyed heads popped out of the window. They had their father's complexion and frame. Their faces were turned into frowns. "Dad, come on! This is the best part of the show! Can the Carrybot do it?"

The doctor rolled his eyes. "No, you have to learn to do things without your technology, whether you built it or not."

They rolled their eyes too, just like their father. "Fine, we'll be down in a second." They disappeared in the house and Peter could see them running out of the house then down the hill. They looked up at their dad. "I'm here," they said in unison.

"Say hello to Peter Parker," Bob said, half-pushing the young boys toward Peter.

"Hi," they said quickly, briskly walking to the back of the car. They obviously did everything together; their outfits, hairstyles, and even their agitated walks were the same.

The doctor chuckled nervously. "Don't mind the attitude, you know how preteens are."

"Oh, it's fine," Peter said, "I remember when I was their age."

"That doesn't seem too long ago," Possible said, heading toward the back of Peter's car anyway. "Are your parents inside?" he asked, picking up two boxes in a stack and carrying them toward the house.

Peter decided to place another box on top of his and carry it inside. The twins followed him with one box. "My parents," Peter paused. "They died when I was four."

"Oh," Possible said, slowing to a stop for a brief second. "I'm sorry," he said solemnly.

"Don't apologize," Peter said. "I live with my Aunt now; she's retired. I had two jobs through high school, but we moved."

"Where are you from, then?" Doctor Possible asked as he entered the empty house with white walls and wooden floors, his voice bouncing off the walls.

"Queens," Peter said.

"You're from New York and you drove here?" Tim or Jim exclaimed. "Why would you ever do that?"

The four boys turned around and walked out of the house. "Middleton's offering me a spot in their biochemistry program," Peter said, "my Aunt called me stupid for even considering turning down an offer like that."

"You got that right," the doctor said, taking two more boxes. Peter and the teens took in the rest of the boxes and Aunt May came from the kitchen where she had already unpacked most of the kitchenware with three cups of water for the Possibles.

"I know it's not much," May said, slowly returning to the kitchen to unpack more, "but thank you so much for this."

"It's no problem," the doctor said with a grin. "Alright, Jim, Tim, you can go-"

The boys were gone before he even finished his sentence.

The doctor quickly turned back around to the new neighbors as if he remembered something important. "By the way, uh, the wife wanted me to invite you two to dinner at our house, so if you don't have any plans-"

"That would be swell," May said, "when should we arrive?"

"Six o'clock," Doctor Possible said definitively. "I have to go. See you then!"

The Possibles left and minutes later the Parkers could hear the sound of the doctor's car speeding off.

"They were awfully nice to do that," May said with a pleasant smile. "I hope you didn't ask for help."

"They offered," Peter chuckled nervously. "I'll start setting up your room upstairs," he said, stacking seven boxes with one one top containing two rollout mattresses. He went into May's room and set her up right next to the bathroom with the bed by the door. He opened the boxes for her but left the contents inside; she hated when he unpacked her things. He took the remaining mattress and three boxes into his room where he would spend his weekends from school. It was spacious enough, about the size of the average dorm room, with a window next to where he laid the mattress and a circle shaped window that paralleled the one next door. The sun shined through the window and he moved over to the window, examining a long crack down the center. He'd have to call the homeowner about that. He looked out the window and found the blinds to that room closed. He chuckled a little, imagining that the redhead bombshell next door would whip open the curtains during one of her dance parties and fall over awkwardly like she did in New York. Peter would really miss his friends.

Peter felt a powerful shock run down his spine and before he knew it, he was already down the stairs and behind May in the kitchen. He removed the step stool in front of her that would have tripped her. He grinned to himself. "Still got it."

May jumped. "Oh! Don't sneak up on me like that, Peter!" she said, turning around and hugging him. "Did you hook up the television yet? You know I can't miss _Everyone in the Household_."

"I'll get right on it," Peter said, running up the stairs in relief. He came back down the stairs three hours later. Peter had really set it up in May's room. Besides for the lack of her most prized possessions, it was just like home.

 **KINDA SLOW OPENING BUT DON'T WORRY, TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS, PREDICTIONS, ETC IN A REVIEW PLEASE, THANKS!**


	2. Chapter 2

**OWN NOTHING**

Peter had changed into a nice red sweater and khakis with brown shoes that fit with his black-rimmed glasses. His short, brown hair was combed nicely against the curve of his hair. May found a nice sundress for the late August weather and the two new residents of Middleton walked outside to the beautiful Colorado sunset. The sky was orange and pink, still without a cloud in sight, with the mountain peaks making the horizon jagged to the east.

They walked up the tall hill to the door of the very modern and posh house and Peter knocked. No one answered. Two cars, a black Cadillac and a red sports car, were in the driveway, so he knocked again. "Coming!" he heard the doctor say from inside the house with his very fatherly voice. "Kim! Ann! Come down and meet our new neighbors!"

Peter heard footsteps come down a flight of stairs. "Kim!" a woman's voice said, probably Mrs. Possible.

"I'm here, mom," Peter heard a younger female's voice said. Certain abilities Peter possessed let him hear at extremely acute levels.

The door opened and a ruddy-skinned woman of moderate height and a curvy figure with blue eyes and short red hair in a swept hairstyle welcomed them inside with a smile. The family was dressed fairly casually except for the parents; Peter felt overdressed. "Come in! I'm Ann. You must be May and Peter?"

"It's nice to meet you," May said, looking up and down at Helen's sundress. "Great minds dress alike too, I suppose. Where did you get that dress? It's very beautiful."

That drew Ann and May into a conversation and Peter looked around their living room. Ann kept her house in modern cabin style and had several cubist paintings next to a glass bookshelf. The furniture was brown and red, creating a very "warm" scene with the light brown wooden pillars in the corner of the room and convex ceiling with thin, black lamps hanging from it.

"Hello, I'm Kim," the young woman's voice said cheerily, snapping Peter's attention toward the front. He swallowed nervously at the athletic and curvy ruddy-skinned girl with long, wavy red hair reaching past her back and bright, blue eyes. She had pouty lips and a pointy nose, reminding Peter of another beautiful redhead he knew. She wore a green tank top that exposed her midriff and blue Capri pants with white tennis shoes.

"I'm Peter," the boy said, already feeling nervous. What was it about girls next door? "I just moved in."

"Yeah, I heard," Kim said. "Is it just you and your Aunt?"

"Yeah, just us," Peter said, scratching the back of his head. "We're from New York."

"Wow, that's a long way," Kim said, walking to the dinner table. She turned to him with a quizzical look. "So are you just going to stand there or…"

"Dinner's ready, everyone," Ann said, starting to carry dishes with May from the kitchen to the dining room onto a mahogany dinner table long enough for everyone.

Peter and Kim changed directions, heading to the kitchen to help serve. Peter heard an almost inaudible ringing from inside the doorway leading to the den on the opposite end of the room. "Mrs. Possible," Peter said, "your phone is ringing."

"What are you talking about?" Kim said, not being able to hear anything.

"Is it?" Ann said, walking into the den across her wooden floor and turning around a corner in the den, seeing her phone on the couch ringing at the lowest volume setting. She quickly picked up the phone. "Hello? Hello?" She hung up and walked back to the kitchen. Her husband took over while she was investigating. "Thanks, Peter," she said, examining the boy and wondering how he was able to hear her phone two rooms away, moreover how he knew it was hers.

"Peter," May said, tapping her nephew's shoulder. "That's enough. You can sit down."

Peter nodded and went to the dinner table, pulling up the chair next to Kim's. Doctor Possible sat at the head of the table. "I hope you saved something for everyone else, Tim and Jim," Ann chuckled, seeing steak bits all over their mouths.

"There's plenty more to go around," Tim said with a blank expression. "What are you talking about-"

"Honey, I was just joking," Ann said, laughing as Kim imitated her brothers' expressions.

"Stop it, Kim!" the twins said, "It's not funny!"

"Maybe it is, kids," the doctor shot back, joining his wife in laughter. "Maybe Kim did it better than you guys. Are you two just going to take that?" Ann looked at the guests and cleared her throat, quickly stifling her own laughter. "

May broke the awkward silence. "He's right, you know," she said.

Peter copied Kim's imitation perfectly, making her father nearly spit out his food.

"I don't see any change from how you looked when you walked in," Kim shot back.

"You'd have to make that expression a lot to notice something like that, wouldn't you?" Peter fired.

The front door to the house opened and a short, lanky, light-skinned boy with short blonde hair, brown eyes and freckles wearing a red tee shirt and khaki shorts walked in casually, closing the door behind him. "Hey Kim, doctors, demons."

Tim and Jim snickered.

"Hello, Ron," Doctor Possible said with a grin. "Pull up a chair, we're just eating dinner."

"Awesome," Ron said. The head of a small naked mole rat popped out from his shirt and chittered. "Rufus and I haven't eaten in two hours and we're starving, aren't we?"

Rufus nodded and chittered in agreement.

"Ah, well," Ann said, watching Ron squeeze in between Peter and Kim with a chair he took from the kitchen. "There's enough for everyone."

Mister Possible made Ron a plate and he started eating with Rufus getting a bite in every now and again. "What's up," Ron said to Peter. "I'm Ron Stoppable, I live next door."

"I'm Peter," he said, "I just moved from New York."

"New York?" Ron exclaimed. "Why move all the way out here?"

Kim looked at the Parker boy with the same interrogative look she gave him earlier. Ann kept her ears open, also wanting to know. "Yeah, what brings you two to Middleton?"

"Oh, just school," Peter said, nothing more.

"Where in Middleton?" Ron asked.

May answered them. "Peter's attending Middleton's school of biochemistry on a full ride," May said proudly. "It's the best in the world according to almost every source."

"Wow," Kim said, forgetting the slight dopiness Peter had exhibited earlier. At least Peter hoped she forgot. "That's incredible. There have only been three other kids who have ever received that award."

Ann would let her daughter be overshadowed. "Kim got a full ride to their prestigious global policy program," she boasted, "also the best in the world."

"I'm going there for business and mechanical engineering," Ron said, "I'm going to infiltrate Bueno Nacho and create the Insta-Nacho robot deluxe nacho maker-"

"Well, the biochemistry program has 76 nobel laureates," May said, bringing Ann into a boasting argument.

"Go us, I guess," Kim said, receiving a sarcastic high five from Peter. "Are you staying in a residence hall or…"

"I'm on the floor below you, remember?" Ron said.

"Yes," Kim said bluntly. "I was talking to Peter."

Ron turned and got a good look at Peter. The New Yorker was broader than he was with clearer skin and whiter teeth. Peter had light skin and sad sky blue eyes with slightly prominent cheekbones. He seemed to fill out his sweater pretty well with a lean, muscular V-shaped frame. He sat perfectly straight in his chair with perfect posture.

"I'm staying in Ida Sproul 712," Peter said, "but I'll be spending the weekends at home." He glanced over at his aunt. "May hasn't been feeling well," he said quietly, leaning forward toward Ron, "I'd feel horrible if something happened to her and I wasn't there."

"What about your parents?" Kim asked, making Peter's smile fade. Her eyes widened in realization as Peter nervously started wringing his hands. He didn't like to talk about it. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Peter said, acting out a grin once again. "How about you?"

"I'm in Norton 804," Kim said, still seeing Peter's nervousness. She wouldn't dwell on it. "It's on the south side of campus right next to the MiTrain station; it's like the BART but for northern Colorado," she said. "I think we're in the same complex."

"Oh, cool!"

"And I live in a double," Kim said excitedly.

"Lucky," Ron said with a hint of disappointment.

"Oh boy," Peter chuckled. All the freshman, including him, were in a double or a triple except for the lucky ones who got their own room. Some got an even worse fate than death: the dreaded quad. He got the better end but he hoped he could live with whoever his roommate was. "Do you know your roommate?"

"Not at all," Kim said, "not even a name."

"What about you, Ron?" Peter said, knowing that Ron would butt in eventually.

"I don't care as long as I can sneak in my little buddy, Rufus," Ron said, bumping fists with his naked mole rat.

"That's great," Peter laughed. "Hopefully we can take some classes together before our schedules diverge-" He turned toward the table and leaned over it with lightning reflexes, catching a pile of dishes May was about to drop with one hand. She was sitting across the table. He blushed and looked at the Possibles and Ron, finding them all gawking at him with wide eyes and open mouths.

"That was fast," Kim said, sounding impressed again and breaking another awkward silence "Nice catch."

"Thanks," Peter said, blushing again and quietly sitting back down.

"Remember that one time I caught three mascot suits from a cargo plane?" Ron said to Kim. Kim felt a buzzing in her pocket followed by a tonical beeping. The whole family turned toward Kim, watching her expression change to a serious glare as she pulled the strange phone-pager from her pocket to look at it.

"I'll be back," she said quickly, leaving the dinner table with the phone to her room upstairs.

Ron glanced at Peter with a small grin before following Kim upstairs.

Peter could not help hearing the conversation. "What's the sitch, Wade?" he heard Kim say.

"DNAmy is trying to turn downtown Middleton's mall into a hamster cage," Peter heard a young teen boy say. "You might want to get there quick or things are not going to end well."

"Got it," Kim said, hanging up.

She and Ron never came back downstairs.

 **THOUGHTS?**


	3. Chapter 3

"Is everything alright?" May asked.

"Oh," Ann said nonchalantly, "that's just Kim's hobby. She'll be fine, I hope."

The rest of Kim's family continued eating, so Peter and May followed. The rest of the night was filled with small talk but the Parkers generally left a good impression. Peter and May walked to the door. "It was nice meeting all of you," May said.

"It was nice meeting you too!" Doctor Possible said, briskly walking out of the house. "Don't worry, Peter; we'll get your Aunt situated at my wife's clinic. She'll take care of everything she needs."

"Thank you, doctor and doctor," Peter said.

"That's professor, to you," Ann said with a smirk. "I'll see you in Chemistry 4A next Monday at 8AM."

Peter suddenly felt sweaty and nervous all over again. He couldn't get anything wrong now. "Doctor and _professor_ -"

"Actually," Doctor Possible said, "I'm teaching your engineering class at nine. Don't be late."

"Have a good night now," May said, closing the door and looking up at Peter. "You're going to make so many people proud."

"We'll find out in a couple days," Peter chuckled nervously, helping May to their house.

Six days passed with little to no event other than the occasional visit from Doctor Possible, whose name they found out was James, and the twins to help May. The phone call Peter heard at the dinner table those nights ago still bothered him and after that night he started receiving his on calls from his own organization, which he never picked up. On the seventh day, sunday morning, Peter awoke and threw on a very quick outfit: a green and gold tee shirt with "M.I.S.T" on it under a light blue jacket and jeans with blue and white sneakers. He grabbed his small suitcase and a box labeled "For Peter Only" from his closet and went downstairs, kissing May goodbye.

"I'll be back when our shipment comes in," Peter said.

"Alright. I'll be here," May said, waving him off.

Peter caught the bus to the MiTrain station, a small, subway-like station with hundreds of people moving in and out of timed trains. Peter almost missed his train but made it to the large campus sitting right in the middle of downtown Middleton. It reminded him of the parks in New York, except it was warmer and there were no homeless people using the garbage cans as their bathrooms. He walked across a large glade where ultimate frisbee was dominating the hot and sunny day to the south end of campus to a complex of four tall and skinny residential halls. A tall, lanky young man with long, blonde hair and baggy clothing walked into a building labeled "Welcome to Ida Sproul! Go Chargers!" on it and entered the elevator with his suitcase and two bags. Peter made eye contact with the boy. "Hold the elevator!" he exclaimed. He darted forward, dodging several families across the tile floor to make it. Peter barely slid in with his suitcase and box as the door closed.

"Good save, dude," the blonde boy said with a thick surfer's accent, staring at the back of Peter's head, "couldn't have done it better myself."

"Thanks," Peter said quickly, adjusting his glasses and keeping a sharp look on the elevator counter. He watched as family after family cleared out of the elevator until it hit the seventh floor. He briskly walked out and down the hall, hearing the surfer dude's footsteps behind him. He found the tall door labeled "712" and pulled a set of keys from his pocket.

"Yo, dude!" the surfer guy exclaimed, punching Peter's shoulder. "I think we're roommates, bro!"

"Oh boy," Peter said under his breath, opening the door. The room was small but had all the things they needed; a bunk bed, two dressers, a mirror, a twin desk and a wide window that allowed them to see all of Metroville.

Peter turned around and saw the white surfer kid with a mellow grin on a blank expression. It was a few seconds before the boy said anything. "Hey; name's Gil Lavert but friends from back home call me "Jaws"; from Long Beach; majoring in econ and chemE. You?"

Peter chuckled a little bit. He had never heard that accent where he was from, and in a sea of uptight students, Gil seemed to be the most relaxed. He was a tad relieved. "I'm Peter Parker and I'm originally from New York. I'm majoring in biochemistry and planning on doubling in biomedical engineering."

Gil laughed. "Yo, that's hella intense! That's 8AM's five days a week and I heard our first engineering class is a killer."

The roommates quickly unpacked. "I don't understand how you can manage majoring in econ," Peter said with a chuckle. "That's several levels above my attention span."

"Just don't let me borrow a dollar after tomorrow morning, bro," Gil said. "I'm basically done. You might wanna hurry so we can catch the commencement on time."

"I'll meet you there," Peter said, staring at his secret box with intent.

"You sure?"

"Yeah; I'll catch up," Peter said.

"Catch you later then," Gil said, closing the door.

Peter put his ear to the door to make sure Gil had left. He nodded to himself and darted over to the box. He quickly opened it and took out the contents: a red and blue web-themed jumpsuit with a long, sleek and shiny black spider logo on the chest and a fat, red, blocky spider on the back. The boots and gloves were both red with metallic white web designs and his mask was very bug like, smooth with no mouth or nose hole and two large, white, ovular eye guards. He hid the ensemble where he thought no one from California would dare to look: under his winter outfits in the back of his bottom drawer. He smirked at his own humor and left the room, quickly closing it behind him. He took the stairs and quickly caught up to Gil and a group of blonde surfer boys that looked basically like him. "Hey, Gil," Peter said.

Gil turned toward Peter. "Well that was quick," Gil said, letting out a laugh that all of his friends emulated. "Lemme introduce you to the bros, bro." He started pointing to his friends. "That's Bill, that's Dill, we call him Jill, we call him Lil', he's Mill, originally Miles, he's Phil, Quinn's a songwriter so we call him Quill, and there's Will."

Peter noticed he left out the blonde on the other side of their little walking party. "What about him?" he asked Gil.

"Oh yeah," Gil chuckled, "that's Ralph."

Peter shook hands with everyone, taking a couple seconds to analyze Ralph to find differences with the others. It was just the name. "I'm Peter. I'm from New York."

"Dude!" Will said.

"Bro," Phil said.

"Gnarly," Another -il said, making Peter realize that Californian surfers may not be his crowd. Peter vanished among the crowd, trying to find anyone who looked familiar. Either Kim was already there or she had quite a bit of walking to do.

He walked across the glade again and crossed the block, immediately entering the urban jungle of a kind he was used to with a flood of other students. He peaked over the head of a line of girls and saw the flowing red locks. He squirreled his way through the girls and stood next to Ron. They both wore school related outfits with Kim still wearing a top that exposed her midriff. Ron looked up at Peter, realizing how much taller Peter was. The guy stood at roughly six feet. "Hey guys," Peter said, catching Kim's attention too. "How's the weather up there?" Ron asked, half chuckling to himself. "Can you still hear me?"

"It's kinda hard to breathe," Peter said, diffusing Ron's setup, "but overall okay. Are you guys excited?"

"Totally!" Kim exclaimed. "Apparently, Peyton Manning is giving a commencement speech. The rest of the cheerleading squad from back home will be so jealous."

"You were a cheerleader?" Peter asked.

"You watch football?" Ron asked.

"I was the on and off captain," Kim said with a hint of pride that turned into disgust. "On and off with-"

Peter felt a hard push to the side. He bumped into a group of shorter boys and apologized to them before looking at the rude person. She was curvy and athletic with tanned skin, wavy brown hair that reached her middle back, and teal eyes with pouty lips. She wore a M.I.S.T tank top and jeans that hugged her body tightly. "Look who it is," she said to Kim in a taunting manner. "The hero of Middleton herself graces us with her presence? Give me a break," she said, fake sticking her finger in her mouth and gagging.

"Bonnie Rockwaller," Kim said through gritted teeth. "What are _you_ doing _here_?"

"I got into the biokinetics program," Bonnie said haughtily. "You weren't the only popular girl who could keep a high GPA and SAT scores, and your popularity was only due to the fact that you're Kim Possible."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Peter said, "and excuse you, by the way."

"Don't you know?" Bonnie said, looking at the New Yorker with such a jealousy that Peter could feel it. "This Mary Sue over here plays vigilante on her offtime, working with the Global Justice Network to stop stupid crimes. Where are you from that you wouldn't know that?"

"I'm from New York," Peter said, looking past Bonnie at Kim with a newfound level of curiosity. He looked back at Bonnie. "Heroes are the norm there, so cut me some slack, alright?"

"Bonnie, do you have anything constructive to say or are you just going to stand there looking disgusted?" Ron asked, with Rufus trying to imitate a Z-snap on Ron's shoulder.

"Maybe you can double major in doing that?" Kim suggested.

"Your comebacks are about as hot as you are," Bonnie smirked, "which is why you've never had a real boyfriend."

Kim heard a group of boys chuckle behind her before moving past them all. "I really do not like that person," she said, balling up her fists.

"She only made it her problem to come up to you because she was jealous of something," Peter said, feeling Bonnie's ego still radiating throughout the crowds, "and frankly you have a lot for someone to be jealous of."

Kim stared at the side of Peter's head for a brief moment before turning back and blushing. Ron rolled his eyes. "Generic, please," he muttered under his breath.

The students walked until they were filed into a large, outside concert hall styled like the Coliseum with a shell shaped stage in the center. Four chairs and a podium were occupied, one with a very important football player who was getting ready to speak. Within minutes, thousands of students had been seated under the hot sun, awaiting the speakers' words so they could resume their day. Kim, Ron, and Peter found seats near the front and sat down.

Peyton, the mountainous Denver Bronco, tapped the mic. "Students!" he shouted, silencing the masses. "Welcome to the best times of your life at Middleton Institute of Science and Technology! You and I share two things in common: we are both the best and the brightest! I might be a football player and you scientists and doctors, but people like us make others want to be like us, and who else is as good as being us as us?" He received a wide applause and the football player continued spouting inspirational speeches for the next twelve minutes before the school chancellor formally welcomed them to the school.

Kim's phone-pager beeped once again and she had on it yesterday. "Ron," she said, "this day just got a whole lot more interesting." She and Ron stood up, leaving Peter in the dark.

"What is it this time?" Ron asked, his rodent companion perched on his shoulder. "Rufus didn't bring his gear!"

"Wait for it," Kim said, feeling the slightest tremor in the ground. "Get to the top rows!" she shouted as the ground suddenly tremored terribly. The speakers fell over in their chairs and the ground beneath them split, tearing the stage in half. The students screamed and started moving toward the exits. Kim and Ron watched five pale, muscular men with black eyes and sharp teeth along with jagged, stone swords hop from the tear in the ground. The neighbourly duo ran headfirst toward the men who took the five speakers as their hostages with blades to their necks. "Hey, ground geeks!" Kim barked, flipping from the third row to the ground of the stadium. Ron turned to Peter with another sly grin, but Peter was gone. "Could you find it in your pale, Vitamin D lacking hearts to release them?" Kim asked, "Don't make me beat the melanin into your skin on my first day of college."

The largest one holding Peyton grinned with black lips and terribly inflamed gums holding yellow and brown teeth. "We are the mole men," he said with a deep and shrill voice. "You will listen to our demands, or your hoo-mans will die."

Kim fell into a martial artist stance, bending her knees with her dominant arm at her side to bring about powerful punches. "I'm not going to ask you again. Let them go or life will become very difficult for you. I'll ask why you're here and who you're working for later."

The mole men laughed, making a similar cackle to hyenas that sent a chill up Ron's spine. "That's not normal; do you need a cough drop?" he asked.

"You take us?" the leader asked. "You are stranger than the others. You attack first and ask questions later. Drop the hostages. We'll just kill these two-"

Peyton flipped a mole man over his shoulder and slammed him to the ground. The other four mole men charged him, allowing the chancellor and other speakers to back away. Kim and Ron dashed toward the mole men, slipping in between them to back up the football player. Kim ducked a sword slash and shot forward with a punch to the sternum. She whipped around, kicking a second goon in his temple while punching the leader in the stomach. She fought with a very strict and strong style, executing fast strikes with deadly accuracy that appeared to be a mixed martial art. Ron fought the other two with more fluid and sloppy strikes, dodging and falling more than anything else. It looked like a fusion of drunken master style and boxing. "Go Rufus!" Ron exclaimed, watching the mole rat leap onto one's face.

Ron let out a TV-show battle cry and clashed with his own mole man. His eyes widened as his fists did nothing to the pale abdomen and he was tossed aside with a hard slap. Ron quickly rose to his feet and lunged forward, accidentally sliding under the monster's legs and delivering a backward heel kick to the groin. The mole ran roared in pain and whipped around with his sword above his head. Ron looked up and gasped. "Kim!"

Kim glanced over, seeing his friend about to get skewered. "Ron!" she exclaimed, leaping from her circle of three and kicking the sword out of his hands. She rolled and picked up the sword for herself, swiftly darting toward the leader with the blade's handle in her shoulder.

Ron sat up and took his rat straight to the face. "Ouch," he said slowly, followed by rapid chittering from his rodent pal. Rufus latched itself back to the mole man he was fighting, so Ron couldn't just sit there. "Right," he said, rolling out of the way of a downward slash and hopping to his feet, backpedaling and dodging swipes. Ron kicked him in the groin again and landed a solid punch in his jaw.

The mole man stumbled back and wiped the trickle of black blood that dripped from his chin. He grimaced at Ron before throwing a punch in his face, knocking him out. The goon met with his friend dealing with Rufus and tossed it off him, angrily walking over to Kim. Her three opponents were bloodied and bruised but looked like they were still fresh. Kim looked like she hadn't been hit. She still wielded the stone sword and continued blocking slashes and hacks from three angles, adding another two angles effortlessly. She ducked and spun around in a full circle, sweeping them off their feet with the flat end of the blade. She flipped out of the circle and landed next to Ron. She grimaced at him sprawled out on the ground with a black and blue bruise on his cheek. Rufus sat on his neck, trying to slap him awake.

"Now you see how powerful we are?" the leader asked, hopping to his feet with the three others who could. "Maybe now you'll reconsider our demands, lest you wish to die!"

"I was going to try to talk it out," Kim said, "but you already had your weapons drawn."

"Be quiet, stupid hoo-man," the leader snapped. "Our conditions are as such: you will take us to your leader, Ahmericah, or her husband, Sahm, so we may take the key to the United States and reclaim the west in the name of the undergroundlings!"

Kim fell back into stance with the sword and glanced toward Ron, finding him gone as well. "What the-"

A loud, cocky laugh could be heard from the top of the shell covering the back area of the stage. "The key to the United States? Sam the stay at home husband? Come on, Kim, at least pick a better rep for your rouge's gallery."

Kim turned around and at the top of the shell stood a tall, muscular man wearing a red and blue spandex themed suit and mask with a large, sleek black spider in the center of his chest. His eyes on his mask were very buggish and white, and there was a weblike grid that covered the entire costume. Ron was over his shoulder with Rufus perched on his head. Peyton stood next to the strange man with a look of sheer shock etched on his face. "Hey," the mystery man said, "I guess it's time to introduce myself."


	4. Chapter 4

The surprise visitor flicked his wrists forward with two fingers pressing on his palms, firing two thin but wide streams of weblike material that split into four from his wrists at the speakers. They stuck to their backs and the mystery man yanked, pulling the four important school faculty members onto the top of the stage covering.

"See, that's gonna be you guys," the bug man said, "except there will be a lot more webbing and you won't be saying 'thank you.'"

"Who are you, insect hoo-man?" the leader of the mole men asked.

The insect hoo-man shot another web line at a mole man's head and yanked him into the air. He leapt twenty feet out to deliver a dual kick to the chest that sent the mole man flying into the first row of the stands. He twisted around mid air and used another beam to pull himself toward a second one, driving his knee into his stomach and knocking it out after all the damage Kim had dealt. He turned to the other two mole men and opened his arms. "Who am I?" he chuckled, turning to Kim who was still surprised and confused. "Can you believe these guys, 'who are you, hurr durr durr'-" he cleared his throat and fell into a very original fighting stance. "I am your worst nightmare." He fell out of stance and tapped his chin. "Or maybe that was Batman? Ah!" He reached into a pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out a red and blue business card with a black spider on it. "This will tell you all about it-"

"No more talking!" the leader barked, swiping at the man. Kim engaged the other mole man and took him down with one grappling attack. The man finally had enough playing with the leader and snap kicked the sword out of his hands. He redirected a punch and countered with his own, snapping his nose. Black blood gushed from the leader's nose.

"It's like a pale, hard tomato where there's black-" the mysterious stranger stopped himself. "It's not like a tomato."

He caught a punch and returned his own, blowing three or four teeth right out of the guy's mouth.

"Wow, Kim, you _really_ did a number on these guys, didn't you?" he asked, following with an elbow strike to the cheek. He flipped back and attached two weblines to the leader's chest. He yanked forward in mid air, breaking most of the man's ribs as he donkey kicked them. The leader fell onto the ground, slack jawed and holding his upper stomach from pain. The bug man flipped back onto the stage and quickly carried the hostages and Ron off the stage and into the grass. "He turned to Kim and made a casual salute. "It looks like you've got it from here, so I think I'll just go now-"

Kim darted forward and grabbed him by the jumpsuit over his throat. "Who are you and why are you here?"

"I'm the good guy." He gently took her hands and released them from his suit, whipping around and firing a webline to the top of the stadium. He dropped a business card into the hands of the vigilante chasing him, She barely missed grabbing his ankle. "Your friendly neighborhood Spider Man," she heard him say calmly with a hint of playfulness before rocketing into the city on a webline. She stared in his direction for a brief second, confused and a little insulted. Her communicator beeped again. She looked down with further confusion. It wasn't her usual contact.

"What's the sitch, Betty Director?" she said.

"Do _not_ let him get away," a stern female voice said over the communicator.

"But why? Who even is this guy?" she asked. "And what about the mole men and Ron?"

"Global Justice Network will take care of them," she said with a desperate tone. "I want you to get that spider and bring him to me."

Kim grimaced and pulled out a grappling hook. She fired it and it latched onto the top of the stadium. She yanked herself forward, landing on the stadium's edge. She looked down the street, watching Spider Man swing from building to building on his weblines. "I want details."

"You're not ready to-"

"You're asking me to chase and detain a potential superhero," she said, attaching her hook to the side of a building and swinging herself like she did this all the time. "Either you tell me, or he gets away. I don't technically work for you, remember?"

Kim heard silence over the phone. "Alright," the Director said with a hint of arrogance, "but I must warn you, learning about the other groups will put you in their watch."

"Oh, look at that," she said, following the unknowing Spider Man around the corner. She watched with awe as he ran sideways across a building and zipped toward the tall building at the end of the block. He landed on a cement walls and got onto his hands and knees, beginning to climb it like a real spider. "He's turning the corner! I can't see him-"

"Why must you be so difficult?" Betty snapped. "Listen up, because I'm only going to tell you this once."

"My ears are open," Kim said, landing less gracefully on the wall and holding the communicator between her shoulder and ear. She tapped her shoes twice and little suction cups popped out from the toe, sticking to the wall like Spider Man. She pulled a second hook out of her pocket and started climbing the bumpy and jagged architecture, quickly following the spider up the building.

"The Global Justice Network was created during the early days of the World War Two to initially combat the Axis Powers. We were under the council of the most powerful individuals of the world at the time and our mission was black and white: defeat Hitler, save the world, let nobody know about it. As you know, around that time there was a boom of unexpected and random events and mutations, leading to some of the Western world's most famous," she paused. "Super powered individuals."

"Uh huh," Kim said, "get to the point."

"Back in 1999," Betty said with aggravation, "an evil organization by the name of H.Y.D.R.A instigated a war against the world using these individuals for the purpose of world domination. This put some of the newly revered 'super powered individuals' in the category they belonged, as hundreds to thousands of these mutants formed ranks toward a new world order. We quickly discovered that we could not handle it alone and needed to come up with a contingency plan."

"I feel like this is one of theses 'Answers' posts where I have to click 'next' nineteen times to read what the Facebook post was promoting," Kim said dryly. "Get to the point."

"Some of the old farts on the same council that formed us proposed to the board of directors that we would use mutants of our own to fight H.Y.D.R.A," Betty said. "The board voted on it and lost the election, five to four. Freaks like the Wolverine, Captain America, the _Hulk_ for God's sake, were allied with our organization and we wiped out H.Y.D.R.A after a bloody, drawn out war. The directors who voted yes to the mutant initiative in the first place did not want to disband the program despite the clear logic that it was mutants who allowed the terrorist organization to exist in the first place, so under the direction of Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man, and the G.J.N director Nick Fury, who actually served on the board at the same time as I, left G.J.N to form their own organization that freely uses the mutant scourge toward their own goals of protecting the innocent; they are blind to realize the danger they are placing the world in and thus we must stop them."

"And…" Kim said, "I'm almost to the top, please try to finish."

"Stark and Fury invented S.H.I.E.L.D on the east coast a year later and with their Avengers Initiative, they now have over one thousand mutants among their ranks, among humans," Betty said, her voice starting to rise in anger. "Spider Man is one of their operatives and if we don't stop them soon, the mutants will rise and H.Y.D.R.A's new name will be S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Kinda figured that one out from what you told me," Kim said, watching Spider Man crawl onto the ceiling, "but why do you want me to capture this guy? It seems kind of strange to pick up a random agent- if S.H.I. is here now, shouldn't we be looking for the base?"

"He has information on him that rightly belongs to us, some of which may lead us directly to S.H.I.E.L.D's headquarters on the east coast completely undetected," she said sternly. "Bring him to us alive and trust me, there will be no more problems."

"But this one just saved the lives of six people," Kim said.

"How many lives has Shego taken? Or Dr. Drakken? Monkey Fist? That amphibian scrub Ron fights?" Betty said, "you and I both know we'd be better off without them."

Kim heard static as she hopped onto the top of the building, seeing Spider Man waiting with his arms crossed, turned away from her. She put away her communicator and grappling hooks. She wasn't sure how to approach this; she wasn't the type to capture others, especially those who helped her. "You're pretty good at swinging," Spider Man said with a very snarky tone, "I've gotta step up my game. What's bothering you that you came all this way to find me, the famed and revered Kim Possible?"

"Something doesn't quite add up," Kim said, "but I'm going to get to the bottom this. I apologize for now, and I promise I'll make it up to you."

Spider Man turned around and he bent backward, leaning under a punch that would have really hurt. "Wow, what? Way to make a proper introduction!" he exclaimed, kicking the inside of her leg and sliding in between them. He shot a beam of web at her back but she flipped backward, spinning around to deliver a powerful spin kick to Spider Man's right temple. "That's gonna leave a bruise," he said, continuing to block and dodge. "Keep hitting me like that, you'll have to call me the Brown Recluse." He continued to backpedal, dodging strikes left and right before hitting the edge of the building. "I'm gonna have to think on that," he said, leaping back and arching forward as if she had actually hit him. He gave her a thumb up before shooting a web at her pocket, ripping out the grappling hooks. "So… seeya!" he said cheerily, swinging away into the city horizon faster than she could follow without her hooks that were dangling on the side of an opposite building. "Just open that hatch in the roof!" he shouted. "It's an emergency exit so you'll have to move fast if you- eh, you got it!"

Kim felt anger boil from her feet to her head as she slowly made it to the bottom floor of the sprawling office building. She crankily made it back to the university stadium and caught up with Ron and Peter among the few hundred students who came back to hear the rest of the commencement ceremony. The speakers were shouting about school spirit, rankings, expectations, etcetera. She let out a sigh of relief and sat down under the overbearing sun, sitting right next to Peter. Ron's smile flickered for a second. "It's about time you got back!" Ron said. "Sorry for leaving you, Ron! I was going to do this by myself-"

"How about we go out tonight for Bueno Nacho and all is forgiven," Kim said bluntly.

"Deal," Ron said with a wide grin, high fiving Rufus who sat on his thigh. "I have a bunch of coupons for the 3-for-2 sale on poutine nachos, if you're into that. What am I saying? Of course you'll love it. They even have the new circular booths for two there so we can spin around the restaurant. I'm already hungry!"

Kim looked up at Peter who was attentively watching. "Do you want to come with us?"

Ron's smile flickered again. "B-but Kim, the coupons-"

"Peter's new to the area, the state, heck the region," Kim said. "Let's just show him around the city a little bit, to make him feel at home."

"I would like that a lot, actually," Peter said in his usual cool and collected demeanor. "There's surely enough nacho for all of us."

"But it's nacho apology meal," Ron said, half laughing.

Kim rolled her eyes. "Ron-"

"Well that's _nacho_ decision, now is it?" Peter said, sounding a tad snarkier.

"We'll have a great time," Kim said as the rest of the students started clapping for the end of the commencement ceremony, "but first, I still have to meet with my roommates and move my stuff in."

"I'll go with you then," Ron said quickly, standing up with Kim.

"Why don't you come too, Peter?" Kim said, making Ron scowl. "I could show you around campus too."

"I think I'll just meet you guys there," Peter said, feeling his cellphone vibrating. "I have to take a call."

Ron grinned. "Alright, see you later," he said, watching Peter pick up the phone and walk out of the stadium.

"Hello?" Peter said, turning the corner out of the stadium and walking back into the city streets.

"I see you've already gotten yourself into some trouble," a stern, deep and powerful voice of a leader said over the phone with a level of gravitas that grabbed Peter's full attention. "It hasn't even been a week, Parker- not that I'm surprised."


	5. Chapter 5

Peter's eyes widened. "Fury?" he whispered. "I told you to stop-"

"I know what you told us to do, so we found your new phone number and did it anyway," Fury said. "Maybe you should listen up. I wouldn't be calling you all the way out there just to ask how May's doing."

Peter started running, faster than the average human, down the sidewalks and into an alleyway. "Alright, but make it quick; I still haven't installed-"

"This connection is airtight," Fury said, half laughing. "A few people are trying to hack us now and we're overriding their displays and keys with pictures of Gabe Newell's face."

"Alright, that is funny," Peter said quickly, "but what's the emergency?"

"Another hero just attacked you," Fury said, "would you like to know why?"

Peter was quiet for a few seconds. "Yes."

"You've never heard of the Global Justice Network either, and it's good that you haven't," Fury said. "They stayed away from us for a long time, but attacking you may have started something that can't be stopped." Fury began telling Peter what Betty told Kim from an opposite point of view, but the objective of detaining and possibly slaughtering mutants stayed the same. "Peter Parker considers Kim Possible as his friend," Fury said, "but Spider Man cannot as long as she is working for the G.J.N and they _will_ kill you. However, she is a free agent, so she can be convinced to join our cause. Stay safe and watch your back, Parker," Fury said, "the hand of the G.J.N has gripped the west so tight that not even our stations in California can overtake them. It has spread like a shadow over mutant kind, and should they ever rise against us, thousands would be subject to things unimaginable. Got it?"

Peter's eyes narrowed and he nodded.

"I'm going to assume that your silence means 'yes,'" Fury said, "In a couple months, I will send a couple actives to case out any potential stations in northern Colorado. Know that anything to the west of Kansas City is their territory. Good luck."

He hung up and Peter shoved the phone back in his pocket. He power walked back onto campus and to Kim's building. A short and scrawny boy with spiky black hair coming from the elevator opened the door. "Do you live here?" he asked.

"Sure," Peter said with a grin, walking into the building. The side door by the parking lots flew open and Bonnie came in, carrying a tall stack of boxes with an overstuffed backpack. She had several garbage bags full of more belongings on her arms and around her waist, hiding her legs completely.

Bonnie peaked past the boxes and already saw Peter walking toward her. "You. Help. Now."

"I was going to let all of your belongings crush you, but because you said something," Peter said.

"Oh, shut up," Bonnie grunted. Peter took the boxes with little to no effort and held out a hand, gesturing for more stuff.

Bonnie gawked at the bespectacled boy in preppy clothes and a jacket that made him look skinny carrying around 130 pounds of stuff. Peter's eyes widened and he quickly acted like they were just barely enough for him to carry. He made his best straining face and walked into the elevator with the brunette behind him. He set them down and pretended to rotate his shoulders from the stress. "What floor?"

"Floor eight," she said.

Peter realized Bonnie and Kim were on the same floor and he chuckled a little to himself. He pressed the eighth button and waited. He winced, feeling the side of his head. "Wow, she has strong legs," he muttered to himself as the door opened.

"What?" Bonnie said.

"Nothing, just, bruise, it hurts," Peter trailed off. "Do you need me to take any more of your belongings?"

Bonnie gave him another weird look. "I don't think you can."

But he could, he could take much, much more. "Alright then," he said, picking up the boxes and walking down the narrow, white hallway. He weaved through the people and boxes until he saw the familiar flowing red hair. "Hey, Kim."

"No way," Bonnie said, dropping all of her things and looking at the number of the room with the names "Bonnie" and "Kim" under it. "Oh. My. God. You have _got to be_ freaking kidding me."

"Look, Bonnie, I've already had a long enough day, can you wait to whine about this until after I've napped?" Kim turned around, seeing Peter next to the pile of boxes. "You helped her?" she said, her voice slightly irritated.

"Yeah, so what?" Bonnie said. "He did like anyone would do, but if you offered I wouldn't want you touching my stuff."

"Oh, how mature," Kim said, rolling her eyes. "You know they say that high school never ends because of people like you?"

"High school won't ever end for you because of your 40 year old male fanbase, Kim _Possible_ ," Bonnie snapped.

"You're also forgetting about One Direction, Alicia Keys, Ellen, Beyonce, and Kanye West," she snapped back. "What megamillion celebrity contacted you recently?"

"A tweet from them saying 'thank you' does not count," Bonnie said with a smirk. " _I_ at least have Kendrick Lamar and Amber Rose following me on Instagram."

"Ooh!" Kim said, throwing up her hands in a sarcastic manner. "Whoever runs Amber Rose and Kendrick Lamar's Instagram account is a perv! Look at me, I'm Bonnie-"

"Shut up!" Bonnie barked.

"Yikes," Peter said under his breath, deciding he should say something. "There are only 119 days, maybe living with each other might change your relationship."

"I don't think I could stand one day," Bonnie said, moving into her room. Their room was of a similar setup as Peter's. Kim had already taken the top bunk. "At least we can agree on that," Bonnie said.

"Oh god," Kim groaned, "you're not going to-"

"I won't tell you," Bonnie spat, sticking out her tongue.

"Is it over?" Ron asked, peeking out of the room.

"What did you say, Bonnie?" Kim snarled.

Rufus chittered nervously. "Right," Ron said, slipping out of the room. "Kim, I'll pick you up at six?"

"And Peter," Kim said.

" _And Peter_ ," Ron said, glancing at the New Yorker. "Alright. See you later!" he exclaimed, going down the stairs next to the elevator.

Peter noticed the piles of boxes sitting outside the girls' room and he started carrying them, four and five boxes at a time. "You don't have to, Peter," Kim said, although her arms did burn from earlier.

"It's the least I could do for what your dad and brothers did for May," he said. The trio carted at least thirty boxes into the room and the girls started unpacking. "It's four o'clock now; I should probably go now to catch your mom and meet you back here at five fifty,"

"Cool," Kim said. She suddenly stood up. "Wait, my mom?"

"Aw," Bonnie said, "he's meeting the parents already? Can he beat up freaks in costumes too or is he going to be the damsel in distress?"

"When you had left from dinner that night," Peter said, "I let her know about my lab experience and she thought I would be a good apprentice for her."

Kim shuddered, remembering all of the nights the dinner conversation would start with "that stupid apprentice." Her mom was a tough grader and moreover her mom, so she could never imagine what it would be like taking a class with her let alone be in a lab with her for hours on end. " _She_ said that?"

"I was pretty surprised myself," Peter said, wincing again as he set his jaw.

"Could you two talk about Kim's mom somewhere else? I'm trying to ignore you and you're not helping," Bonnie said, continuing to unpack.

Kim walked past Peter to put a few toiletries in her drawer. She noticed the small but dark bruise right under Peter's right temple. "Oh no, Peter! How did this happen?"

"I fell running up the stairs when the monstrous cretins decided to make their surprise visit," he said while blushing. "It wasn't one of my finest moments."

"It might not be your dullest moment either," Bonnie said under her breath.

"Sit on the bed, I'll be back with an ice pack," Kim said.

"I have to go-"

"Sit down," Kim said sternly, leaving the room.

Peter sighed and sat down on the corner of Bonnie's bed. "Get off," she said bluntly, starting to fix it up with her bedding.

Peter stood up and looked around the room for a desk chair. "Do you mind if I take off my jacket? It's getting a bit stuffy in here."

"Then open the window," Bonnie said dismissively, "you can put your jacket on Kim's-" she glanced at Peter's arms as she saw him stretching out of his jacket. He put his jacket over Kim's desk chair and went over to the window. She watched his back muscles contract as he pulled the sliding window open and her jaw dropped again. He turn around and skipped forward on a small box. His glasses flew off his face and onto the ground and Bonnie got to see Peter's blue eyes sparkle as the sun hit the sides of his eyes. "You can sit right here," she said in a cheerier tone, unpacking even faster now. She only had three boxes to go.

Kim returned from the kitchen on the first floor with a small ice pack. She saw what Bonnie saw with Peter's broad chest and blue eyes. This was unprecedented considering his demeanor. She immediately pressed the pack to the side of Peter's head and Bonnie watched Peter awkwardly sit on the bed not knowing what to do with his hands. Kim stared at the bruise quizzically for a brief moment. "Wait-"

"He can probably hold it himself," Bonnie said.

Peter slowly took the ice pack and continued pressing it to the side of his head. "Thank you so much, Kim," he said, standing up and putting on his thick-rimmed glasses and his jacket one arm at a time, "but I really must go. I'll see you later on, alright?"

"Don't be late," Kim said, watching Peter race out of the room.

"Your new boytoy is kinda cute," Bonnie said with a smirk.

"He's not my boytoy, oh my god," Kim said, "he's from New York and I'm just helping him around."

"Sure you are, Kim," Bonnie said, laughing at Kim's scowl. Kim's communicator, her "kimmunicator" as she dubbed it, beeped.

"Here we go again," she said, quickly changing into a purple shirt, black pants with a purple line on the sides, and tight grey gloves with black shoes and a yellow tool belt. "Ron," she said in the pager. "We have another one."

"I never want to see that much of you ever again," Bonnie said.

"Oh, shut up," Kim said, pulling a pair of grappling claws from her closet and leaping out of the window. She landed gracefully on her toes and started running toward the glade. Ron landed less gracefully but landed nonetheless. She saw Peter walking toward the city wearing a professional black suit and tie. "That was fast," she thought, giving the Parker one more curious stare before heading in another direction toward her objective.

Peter glanced over toward the glade and chuckled at Kim racing toward another mission. One of the perks of being a secret was that no one could contact you whenever they wanted to. Free time shouldn't just be a concept; heroes too need that three week break to Fiji. He walked into a wide building with "MIST Applied Life Science Museum" etched in the white marble pillars with a folder in one hand carrying a hefty resume. He entered the building, taking in the museum smell, and he walked up a flight of stairs to the offices looking down on all the exhibits of the museum on the first floor and several sub-levels. He went down a skinny hallway and turned right, seeing two benches facing each other in front of a door labeled "Dr. Possible, Md in Neurosurgery, PhD in biochemistry and biophysics." Sitting on one of the benches was a tall, beautiful blonde with tan skin and piercing blue eyes and pouty pink lips on top of a slender and curvy body. She wore a gray suit and tied her long hair in a loose bun. Her heel tapped the floor anxiously. Peter sat down on the other bench and looked over his resume once more.

The door opened and a short Asian man with slick black hair stomped out with a scowl. "Vivian Porter?" Peter heard Kim's mom say.

The blonde took in a deep breath and showed her best smile which was a perfect, pearly white grin. She stood up and walked in. "I've heard so much about you from my husband's lab," Ann said, closing the door.

Twenty minutes later, the door opened again and Peter was called in. He shook her hand and sat down in the seat next to Vivian in the cramped office. It was a standard interview, Peter thought; all the general questions were hit and then he was subject to a pop quiz on the subject matter he'd be researching. Ann looked at the two quizzes and chuckled. "Wow," she said. "Two perfect scores. Vivian, I think you may have found your partner."

Peter turned to her and grinned, extending his hand. "I can't wait to start working with you."

Vivian blushed. "That only means one thing in this context."

"Yes, I know," Peter said, staring at her puzzled.

"Oh, sorry," she said, "guys usually think I'm too pretty for science."

"They're too stupid for science," Peter said bluntly, "please tell me these people aren't also scientists."

"See, you two are getting along already," Ann said, ushering them out of her office. "I want to see you both on next Monday in lab appropriate wear. We're jumping right in. Welcome to the forefront of humanity."

"So you're the biophysicist?" Peter asked.

"Indeed," she said. "I worked in her husband's lab before this; I was a spring admit from last year, so I know a little bit about how she works and what to avoid."

"You worked in Mister Possible's lab too?!" Peter exclaimed. "If you have the time, I'd love hearing about it."

"You live in the units, yes?" she asked.

Peter nodded.

"I live in Priestly so we can just walk together," she said.

"Awesome!" Peter said, happily listening to stories of one of his favorite scientists from a student of his. He had always loved to hear about research and he wondered what kind of super genius she was if she got to work with him as a freshman. Yeah, he was getting a position too, but he had already made Ann and James like him.

They made it back to the dorm complex within a few minutes and stood in front of Vivian's building. "Hey, um, do you want my phone number?" Vivian asked him. "Considering we're going to be working together a lot?"

"Oh, yeah," Peter said, quickly pulling out a tiny, outdated smartphone. He traded it for her slim new I-Phone and they added each other's numbers and emails. They traded back and Vivian turned around, heading toward the building.

"See you later, Peter," she said, entering the building. Peter looked down at his phone, seeing two new Facebook notifications. He opened it while walking back to his building, seeing friend requests from Kim and Bonnie, the latter he found very strange. He accepted both and received a message from the latter a few seconds later. He blushed and opened his contact info again, adding her number as well. Twice in a row would never happen in New York. He rushed to his room where Gil was absent, probably still hanging out with his friends, and he changed back into his school pride outfit… with his spider suit with the sleeves rolled up underneath just in case. He felt like this wasn't going to be the last time he'd have to go to blows with Kim Possible... not that he was worried.


	6. Chapter 6

He rushed back to Kim's building, watching her and Ron run up to the complex. They stopped in front of the doors. "Hey, Peter," Kim said, holding onto her knees for a brief second. "How did the interview go?"

"It was nowhere near as interesting as what you probably just did," Peter said.

"He's right, you know," Ron panted. "Let's change so we can get our nacho rewards; you might get overshadowed if people ask for autographs. There will be mile-long lines just for the two of us. You'd never understand, y'know?"

Peter's alter ego immensely disagreed that on the inside, but he wouldn't let Ron know that. "I'm from New York; a mile? Not impressed."

"I'm telling you," Ron said, shrugging, "it might not be worth coming if-"

"He's coming, Ron," Kim said sternly.

"I'll wait right here, unless fans start piling up in front of the building," Peter said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall adjacent to the door.

Kim and Ron entered the elevator. She waited for the door to close. "Alright, what is up with you lately? I'm just trying to be nice to our new neighbor and unless you try to make him out to be a fool, which has turned around on you every time, you don't talk to him at all!"

"I don't trust him, Kim," Ron said quickly, "he's hiding something, I know it; no one can be that- that-"

"That what?" Kim said, seeing his set jaw. "I'm just being nice to the new kid," Kim said, "nothing more."

"I know you're just being nice," Ron said, "but after four years of it just being us, I guess I'm just a little afraid of change."

"What are you talking about?" Kim asked.

"He's already met your parents, he probably aced the interview, and he hangs out with you," Ron said, "I can see the self-destructive trio forming, Kim."

"Stop overthinking it," Kim said, "Peter probably can't keep up like you, he probably doesn't have the experience like you, nor the stamina; nothing will change, alright?"

"I get the triple nacho decker nacho nacho supreme," Ron said, making Kim roll her eyes as they stopped on his floor.

"Fine," Kim said as the doors closed, taking her to her floor. She walked into her room where Bonnie sat on the bed with headphones in, working on her laptop. Kim changed back into civilian clothing and left the room.

"Have fun," Bonnie said, giving Kim a snide grin before continuing to message Peter on Facebook.

Kim and Ron caught up with Peter on the ground floor and the three went off into the city, traveling three blocks in before they found the retro Mexican restaurant Ron was so fond of. "I'll go get us seats," Peter said. "Let me order what Ron's having, alright?" He gave Kim ten dollars for his meal before walking toward the windows of the restaurant.

Ron snickered, watching Peter sit himself down at a four person booth. "You'll have what I'm having, alright."

Peter waited for twenty minutes before Kim and Ron came to the booth with three large nacho baskets, two of them red with heat radiating from the basket. "Are the jalapenos on fire?" Peter asked, backing away from the basket in his chair.

"Think you can handle it?" Ron said with a smirk.

"Heck no," Peter said half laughing and getting back up to order his own meal. "Thanks, Ron."

Peter went into the line and the kimmunicator beeped again, this time very rapidly. "Seriously?!" Ron exclaimed.

Kim sighed. "Come on, Ron; we can eat after this. We'll just have Peter wait here-" she looked toward the line and Peter had vanished. "Peter?" she said, looking around the restaurant frantically. She ran out of the building and into the parking lot.

"Relax, Kim," Ron said, "he's probably just in the bathroom. The food I got for him will do that."

"He went up to buy other food, remember?" Kim said.

"Let's find the crime first," Ron said, still sounding very nonchalant. "Maybe he went missing?"

The duo saw a shadow being cast over them and they looked up, seeing a small saucer in the sky, big enough for six or seven people, with a green "D" emblem on the silver crest on the bottom of the saucer base. "Drakken," Kim said with venom, watching four metal legs pop out from the saucer so it walked like a spider. It hopped on top of the restaurant's slanted roof and crouched, opening a hatch in the bottom. Six men and a woman rolled out. The men were four men dressed in red jumpsuits with assault rifles labeled "grunts" and "fodder," the fifth man was a tall, muscular Hispanic man wearing a tight orange tee shirt and a black leotard, while the sixth was a tall, lanky man with pale blue skin and spiky, black hair wearing a blue lab coat with a black belt with the same emblem as the ship. The woman was a young woman with pale green skin, black lipstick and long, wavy black hair and piercing green eyes. She wore a green and black jumpsuit that hugged her athletic and curvy body tightly, more than likely using her looks to kill. A green aura surrounded her hands with black bubbles of energy floating throughout the green energy.

"Hey, Kimmie," she said in a taunting manner.

"Shego, I think you forgot to take off your mascara," Kim said, stopping herself. "Oh, wait."

"You could lose ten pounds by removing all the foundation from your face," Shego shot back.

Drakken laughed. "Good burn, Shego," he said with a scratchy British accent. "Why hello there, Kim Possible; would you mind standing still so that my men can turn you into a discarded practice dummy?"

"What do you want this time, Drakken?" Kim demanded.

"We heard there was a new hero in town and we thought we'd just stomp him out before he gets confident," Drakken chuckled.

"How did you know to look here?" Kim asked.

"Word is he's working with you," Shego said, "and we can always find you."

"Alright, Kim Possible, where's this bug so I can squish him like a cockroach?" Drakken asked.

"I hope you have a really big boot," Kim and Ron heard a familiar voice from earlier shouted from the restaurant. They watched a webline fly out of the front doors and onto a truck at the far end of the parking lot. Spider Man zipped past Kim and Ron and hopped onto the car.

Shego saw the suit and gasped. "This is not your city, Spider Man!"

"Just moved in," he said, bouncing on his toes, "Kim, would you mind giving me the rundown on the hottie in green then the bozos I'm pretty sure she's paid to work with?"

"I am Doctor Drakken," the blue man said dramatically, "evil mastermind of the twenty first century, terror of the world who epitomizes the word vile-"

"And the Academy Award goes to Will Smith," Spider Man cut in, "alright, Fabio Flintstone, you're up."

"Excuse me," the Hispanic man growled with a heavy accent. "I am Señor Señor Junior, the most fabuloso villain in the-"

"Yawn," Spider Man taunted. "Come on, guys, I come from Green Goblin and Doctor Doom to you guys- Shego, right? What's your story?"

"Can we just fight and get it over with?" Kim asked.

"I have nachos to get back to," Ron growled.

"Because you have attention problems, I'll make this quick," she said bitterly. "I can fire green and black energy blasts from my hands."

"How original! Do the guys in red bleed the color of their jumpsuits?" Spider Man said.

"Do you?" Shego smirked.

"Wanna come over here and figure that out?" Spiderman offered, tapping his chin. "On second thought, I think I'll just come over there."

Spiderman hit two weblines on their saucer and zipped across the lot. Drakken gasped as Spider Man kicked two grunts in the face, snapping their noses and breaking their jaws. "Shoot, you imbeciles!"

The other two grunts watched Spider Man dart toward them in terror as they fired, hitting nothing and receiving a palm strike to the chest and a kick to the stomach. They dropped like stones. Kim and Ron hopped onto the roof on the same side as Spider Man. "Looks like we're a pretty even match," Spider Man said, "that is, until we start fighting."

"You're much snarkier in person than you are over the news," Shego said with a smirk, "Kimmie, as much as I want to toss you around, our main objective is sitting right here."

"You have to get past me first," Kim said, "he and I have some unfinished business."

"Very well," Shego chuckled, clashing with the redhead hero in a battle of martial prowess.

Ron charged the Doctor and their awkward battle began, employing the goofiest of tactics to land a hit.

Spider Man looked at Señor Señor Junior and immediately took a powerful punch to the face and a follow up to the gut. A third hit his temple and a fourth made him stumble back. Junior saw the superhero's fists tighten. "Aw, did I make you muy furioso?" He taunted, throwing another punch. The hero ducked and shot forward with an uppercut to the center of his torso. Junior coughed up a spray of blood and fell to his knees, holding his stomach in pain. He shot a webline at Drakken and yanked him back, throwing another punch that broke several ribs on the left side of his chest. Spider Man flipped into the fight between Kim and Shego sided with Kim.

"Girls, you're both pretty," Spider Man said, sweeping Shego off her feet with a kick and turning to Kim. "Tips on how to defeat her?"

"Keep punching," she said, dodging a green and black fist and returning a high kick, "and don't think we're through from earlier; I have a lot of questions I need answered."

Spider Man took a punch from Shego to the jaw followed by a kick to the chin, making him flip back and land on his feet. "Impressive," Shego said, "no one besides Kim here has been able to take that combo before."

"I can take whatever you three can throw at me," he said cockily, rushing into the fray again.

Kim's kimmunicator beeped again and she flipped back, letting Ron and Spider Man take Shego. "What's the sitch-"

"Forget Shego," Betty said quickly, "bring me Spider Man or I'll send my men to do it _and_ you will be considered a priority enemy of the G.J.N if you side with him, and trust me, you would not like to see my men _retrieve_ someone we're interested in nor be on the opposing side because it usually ends up in a lot of blood."

Betty hung up on Kim and the young vigilante stared at the spider and Shego, as Ron had been taken out once again by a solid punch from the woman in green. "Are you just going to stand there confused?" Shego asked. "Did your boyfriend break up with you? I can make you forget all about it with one shot to the-"

Ron shot up. "Boyfriend?"

Kim looked at the superhero going toe to toe with her rival and charged him, tackling him to the ground. "What the heck, Kim?" Spider Man said, shrimping out from her grasp and hopping to his feet. He caught a kick and spun her around in the air, letting Shego hit her in the side with a flying kick.

"Hey, buddy!" Ron shouted. "Whose side are you on?" Rufus chittered angrily.

"I'm trying to be on yours but Kim is making that a little difficult," Spider Man said, receiving a jump kick to the chest that sent him cartwheeling back to the edge of the restaurant's roof. Kim fired her grappling claw at Spider Man's chest and yanked with all her strength, pulling him into a powerful punch to the face. The spider followed with a knee to the stomach and took a palm strike to the face from Ron. Spider Man rolled sideways and took a kick to the chin. He rolled back, seeing Ron and Kim running toward him with Shego behind them.

"I'll explain everything later," Kim promised. "Just come with me and I'll make sure nothing happens to you."

Spider Man stood up and caught strikes from both vigilantes with a grip so strong it hurt. "I'd rather keep my head," he said, watching Shego perform an in air spin kick to toss both heroes aside. Shego took a kick to the stomach sending her skidding back.

Drakken groaned and groggily climbed to his feet, pulling out a black, circular pistol with a pointed barrel. He closed one eye and aimed at the spider.

Spider Man felt a surge of adrenaline and clinched Shego, leaning back with her as a laser blast flew overhead. Spider Man slipped through Shego's legs and fired a web bolt at Drakken's face, covering his head in blinding webs. "You're welcome!"

Spider Man hopped to his feet surrounded by his three opponents and his senses were on overdrive, dodging, punching, kicking, and shooting webs in all directions. They quickly learned surrounding him was not the best idea. Spider Man slipped a hook in Ron's ribs and swept Shego and Kim to the ground. The web-slinger stood in the middle, taunting them for a minute as he bounced on his toes.

They all hopped back toward one corner of the roof, with Kim and Ron glaring at the mutants on the other side. Kim and Ron felt very fatigued- Spider Man hit harder than they thought. "You guys seem shocked, are you okay? I've got some Neosporin at home, if you'll let me go real quick- promise I'll come back?" The choppers arriving overhead might learn that too if they sent ground troops. "I might need a couple band-aids too..."


	7. Chapter 7

"Damn it!" Drakken exclaimed, seeing a bright chopper light illuminate his spot in the evening city. News vans were around the restaurant with crews recording the fight and, more notably, the new hero in Middleton. "The Global Justice Network will never get a hold of me!" he shouted, shaking his fists at the black choppers. "Get to the saucer!" he said, whipping out a remote and hopping toward the ledge of the hatch. He climbed in and shut the hatch, leaving his subordinates to be captured. Ropes started falling from the helicopters.

"You're just going to leave me?" Shego shouted, watching men in bulky black S.W.A.T armor with machine guns quickly slide down the ropes.

"Spider Man," Kim said, "I know this all seems sudden, but just come with me and we can settle this."

"Settle what with who?" Spider Man asked. "I know what you've been told by your agency, that I'm some scourge that needs to be eliminated by the humans, and I know that you're confused that the only mutants you've met have been your enemies, but know that a majority of us do what you do. If you were a mutant, you'd also know that trusting big organizations will usually get you shot at once you try to do the right thing. Heck, I work for-"

"Put your hands in the air and stand there," one G.J.N member barked, followed by seven other agents pointing guns.

"Do you know what you're even fighting for?" Spider Man said. "Because I don't!"

"Stand still and shut up!" one Swatter barked, pointing his gun at the red and blue vigilante.

Shego watched bitterly as Drakken's saucer took off into the sky with several choppers following after it. She yelled in anger. "After all I've done for you?!"

The lead swatter looked at Shego for a split second and Spider Man darted forward, disarming the man and nearly breaking his sternum with a powerful elbow strike. The six other men aimed at Spider Man. "Go!" he exclaimed to Shego.

"You're going to let her get away?" Kim said, unsure whether to save the vigilante or to detain the criminal.

"It's obvious she and I have some things in common," Spider Man said. ripping up chunks of polished cement and whipping them and four of the guards. He hopped into the air, delivering a powerful split kick that might have caused a few skull fractures to the remaining guards. "We stay loyal to our side," he said, shooting a webline and zipping toward Shego before Kim's grappling claw could reach him. She watched him join the raven haired villainess as they rushed into the city with tall men in black suits and sunglasses following close behind with their pistols drawn.

"Kim! Should we go after them?" Ron asked, for once seeing Kim's face full of confusion.

"I-I don't know," Kim said, "he was on our side, then he was on their side, I don't- I can't-"

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned around, seeing Betty Director looking at her sternly. "It's alright. Opposing someone who was on your side is hard, but in the end, they will never be your companions. Come with me. There is still much to discuss."

Kim and Ron went with Betty. Kim turned to look back, barely seeing Spider Man and Shego several blocks away hopping from rooftop to rooftop. The two mutants looked behind them as the made a twenty foot horizontal jump from an office building to a set of twin apartment buildings in the shape of a "U". Spider Man and Kim watched anxiously as the agents followed their exact movements, following them using the same skills at the same level. "Keep going," Shego said, running to the edge to jump to another tall building. An agent flipped up from the window of the top floor below them, kicking Shego back and landing on the ceiling. He whipped around and aimed his pistol right between her eyes.

She gasped as she stood down the barrel of the pistol and her whole life as the evil sidekick flashed before her eyes. Spider Man whipped around and fired a web beam at the gun, tearing it away from her as it fired and skimming his arm. He darted over to her and she noticed his arm was bleeding. "Are you alright? Those really hurt; I should know."

Four agents hopped onto the roof of the apartment buildings, roughly twenty to twenty five stories tall, and surrounded Spider Man and Shego with their pistols cocked and aimed. "End of the line, mutant," one of the agents said. "Men, fire when I give the word."

"Well, I did always prefer air travel," Spider Man said, seeing an evening news chopper flying fifty feet above them heading toward the highest peak in the city that reminded him of a skinnier Empire State Building made all of glass and steel beams. He took Shego in one arm around the waist.

"Hey!" Shego shouted, grabbing Spider Man's arm. "Let go of me!"

"In a second!" the vigilante said insistently.

"Fire!" the agent shouted.

Spider Man shot his line at the chopper and the two mutants barely dodged getting a bullet or two to the chest. Spider Man winced as a bullet grazed his shin, left ribcage, and right thigh, and made him bleed even more. They zipped through the sky and Spider Man let go of the web to spin through the chopper's open sides. "Oh my god!" Shego shouted, screaming louder than anyone on any roller coaster would. She held onto him for dear life. "Never let go of me!"

"Wasn't planning on it," Spider Man said, chuckling to himself how girly Shego's sultry voice became when she was swinging around the city. Spider Man flipped and twirled through the air, pulling trick shots with his webs in between his legs and over his head. He swung upward, nearly going upside down before he let go and shot a beam at the antennae of the tallest building. He pulled them toward the stacked pyramidal rooftop with blinding speed and landed on the peak with relative ease. "Are you ready? This is how you escape," he said, looking over the edge of the building and looking hundreds of feet straight down onto the ant-like city streets. "Now you need to really hold on."

"What are you waiting for?" she asked, hugging him tightly.

Spider Man took a running dive, barreling head first toward the ground. Shego looked toward the alley cement growing closer and she screamed, closing her eyes. She stopped screaming when she felt her toes touch the ground. When she opened them again, she saw the spider hanging upside down on a web of rope attached to the side of the skyscraper. She looked toward the street, finding a majority of the people bustling back and forth unaware and not very interested in the alleyway at night. She looked back up and watched Spider Man slowly raising himself back into the sky. "If your boss leaves you to die next time, you might want to consider new employment, maybe one with some life insurance and medical insurance, also one who actually knows what he's doing. You don't just go out trying to kill superheroes; from my experience there's quite a bit of planning involved-"

"Shut up," Shego said bluntly, stopping the raising spider. She saw where he had been hit and they still bled, creating dark red splotches on his red and blue costume. "You realize I could have killed you, right?"

Spider Man descended again, looking at her in the eyes. "Quicker than you realize," he said, "but with great power comes great responsibility, and that is to treat everyone with the same diligence and sense of justice." She still looked hurt from what Drakken did to her, and Spider Man could tell it wasn't the first time. "It was the right thing to do."

Shego slowly reached toward the hero's mask and carefully unrolled it past the masked man's mouth, not needing to see any more. She took him by the sides of his head.

"Um," Spider Man said, "what are you-"

"Confusing you." Shego leaned forward and kissed him deeply, caressing the back of his head and enjoying the taste of his sweet lips. Spider Man's face turned red as she broke the kiss, smirking at her black cherry lipstick staining his mouth. "Don't expect to be so lucky next time," she said, backing further into the alley, "we're still enemies."

"I expect to rumble with your motley crue a few more times," Spider Man said dryly. "Next time, bring me a challenge."

"Be careful what you wish for." She turned around and Spider Man fixed his mask, watching her go. "Bye, hero," she said sultrily, fading into the shadows.

Spider Man looked at the end of the alleyway for a minute, dwelling on what had conspired at what that may mean for the future. His cell phone rang inside his suit in an 8-bit version of his theme song. He zipped back up the building, scaling and crawling to the top of the skyscraper within seconds. He held onto the antennae and reached into his pants, pulling out his phone from the jeans he wore underneath the suit. "Fury?"

"Cross what I said about the actives coming to your location in a couple months," Fury said, "things have taken an unexpected turn and they'll be setting up a rally point in your location in four weeks."

"Global Justice Network?" Spider Man asked.

"No," Fury said grimly, "we're pulling out the Avengers Initiative for this one. Code 71."

Spider Man's eyes widened. "Anything else I should know about?"

"Watch your back out west, Parker," Fury said. "We'll be on our way and you should get to bed. You have class tomorrow morning."

Peter heard static and put away his phone. He took off his mask and took a deep breath. Code 71 hadn't been used in three years. He shook the goosebumps on his skin away and put on the mask, swinging and zipping back to the restaurant where the three plates of nachos still sat. Kim and Ron were gone. "I'm taking these," he said under his breath, putting them on a stack and swinging away again. He stealthily crawled up the side of his building and opened the window to his room. It seemed Gil hadn't returned yet.

He closed the window and took off his mask, hearing a knock at the door. "One minute!" Peter said, hurriedly taking off the costume and stuffing it into his closet. He opened it and Kim, Ron, and Bonnie rushed inside, half tackling Peter.

"Oh my god," Kim said, looking a bit bruised and banged up herself. "You look like you got into a fight! Where were you?"

"I was subdued by a couple of the blue guy's thugs trying to get away," Peter said, acting distressed. "I am so glad you're safe-"

"You're bleeding," Bonnie said, seeing the wounds on his legs and side.

"Did someone punch you in the face?" Kim asked.

Peter's eyes widened and he quickly wiped the lipstick off. "Yeah, right in the mouth."

"Poor you," Kim said, "let me-"

"No, you don't have to," Peter said, "you have bleeding under the skin and several small lacerations to your cheeks and forearms as well as a first degree burn on the side of your head- you should be taking care of yourself, not me."

"He's right, Kim, and thanks for saving the nachos," Ron said, moving past Peter and taking his plate. "Let's get out the first kit and get you ready for tomorrow. See ya, Peter." He took Kim by the hand and pulled her to the elevator.

Bonnie looked at Peter up and down. A sly half-smile flashed at him.

Peter blinked. "Can I help you?"

"You're not fooling anyone, Parker," Bonnie said with a smirk. "I just have to figure out who I see. Bye, Peter." She turned around and closed his door, leaving Peter alone for the first time all day. He let the pain and stress come back to him, feeling his wounds burning in pain. He winced his way through changing into an "I 3 NY" tee shirt and New York Mets pajama pants and fell on his bed, setting his alarm to seven thirty and shutting his eyes.

"I'm so glad the day is over," he said to himself, rolling over and hoping to drift into a deep sleep.

Peter heard the door open again. "Peter, you're back!" Gil exclaimed. Peter's eyes flew open. "Yo, me and the guys are gonna listen to some music, that okay?"

"Well, actually-"

"Thanks, dude!" Gil said, pulling out his Ipod with his friends and headbanging to loud, screaming metal.

This was going to be a long night.

 **SO NOW I GUESS YOU CAN PRETTY MUCH GUESS THE SHIPPING POSSIBILITIES: PETER/KIM, PETE/BONNIE, PET/VIVIAN, PE/SHEGO**


	8. Chapter 8

**I OWN NOTHING**

 **AN: Welp, we have hit that point in the story where the main characters have been established. In each update I'll be dedicating mini-chapters to each character while progressing the plot to form bigger "chapters," the biggest mini-chapters belonging to Peter and Kim, of course. I might start doing this for some of my other stories, as it has worked in my DBZ/Everybody stories (if interested, just start with 'Dark Tournament' and go to 'Expedition'), however I will not suddenly start doing it with long running stories like** _ **The New Face of Justice**_ **until the next book of the series (Oh yeah, Book 2, TNFoJ readers, but not now).**

 _Peter_

"Harry!" Peter shouted across the hallway of what seemed like an office building for the school. The wall sign with "Undergraduate Affairs: Room 283" had several large fist-shape holes in it and the windows showing the beauty of the Rocky Mountains in the distance had been shattered. Empty gas cans littered the floor and Peter's surroundings seemed to be dampened in a soft, dead gray. Peter ducked a punch from a man in a black suit and threw his own, twisting as the impact spread across the man's chest. The man in black flew across the hallway and Peter looked down the hallway in distress, watching a young man wearing a green and black armored jumpsuit barely keeping up with three men in suits. Four more men charged toward Peter and the young hero vaulted over them. Peter aimed his web shooters at Harry's adversaries but nothing came out. "Come on, come on!" He looked down at his wrist, seeing the small circular device on his costume smoking and sputtering sparks. His eyes widened and he let the sudden surge of adrenalin propel him forward and onto the ground as a small RPG flew overhead. Peter tried his other wrist and a familiar white beam of dense and sticky polymers caught the weapon. The missile dragged him across the room and the agents fighting Harry hit the floor. Peter cut the web line and hopped to his feet next to his friend. Harry was roughly as tall as Peter with light skin and short, straight, dark brown hair. He wore a green and black facemask to compliment his outfit but a long gash above his eyebrows made it hard to see through them. "Grab on, Harry; I don't know what either of us are doing here, but I think it's safe to say that this isn't the best place to be."

"Really?" Harry said, catching his breath. "What gave you that bright idea?"

Peter and Harry darted toward the open window at the end of the hall and they leaped out, looking down and seeing ant-sized black trucks similar to what a SWAT team might come in. Harry caught Peter's arm and Spider-Man shot a webline at a building a few meters shorter than the office building. He yanked the line toward the building and the surge of adrenalin he called his "Spider Sense" forced him to let go of that webline as a flying disc cut it in half. He turned toward the source and his eyes widened. He threw Harry onto the roof of the building they were headed. "We'll talk later. I have to take care of this."

"Yeah, sure, just throw me," Harry said, landing not very gracefully on his feet.

Spider-Man turned his full attention on the redheaded girl and blond boy wearing black jumpsuits and riding sleek, Omega-shaped hover devices riding fast toward him. He fired a webline at the blond boy and whipped him through the window of the office building before taking a hard kick by the redhead to the face. Spider-Man caught himself on the side of the shorter building and flipped upward, landing next to Harry. "Do we have to do this, Kim?" Peter asked, seeing his new friend's eyes narrow as she ascended to their level.

"You knew this was coming, Pete," Kim said venomously. Her mouth opened wide and a blaring beeping noise shook Peter to the core, making Harry and everything else disappear before everything went black.

Peter's eyes flew open and he leaped out of bed, webbing himself above Gil's bed. He looked down and Gil, with all of his friends, were laid out on the bed and the floor haphazardly. He carefully and quietly made his way down and turned off his phone alarm that he would now forever associate with Kim's mouth. He shook himself awake. He didn't get much sleep, and fighting friends and foes in dreams wasn't very new to him. "Fifteen minutes until class starts, right, right," he said to himself, hopping into a white tee shirt with a red, white, and blue shield finished with a white star in the middle of it and a pair of jeans. He sprayed himself with a bit too much body spray and put on his glasses, taking his backpack and coughing out of the room. He continued to get himself ready in the elevator, using a water bottle for brushing his teeth and his phone for a mirror. Thankfully, no one else needed the elevator. He stepped outside his building and took a deep sigh of relief. "Ten minutes to do a fifteen minute run to Pementil Hall," he said to himself, throwing out his water bottle. "Easy, easy, come on Spidey," he muttered under his breath, starting to run as fast as he could. He pushed his glasses as far up as they could go and dashed across the street, running every red light and dodging cars at the large four-way intersection known as the "Misty Market" as most of the stores and restaurants affiliated with the school were located there. Five blocks later he crossed the street that sequestered the M.I.S.T chemistry block from downtown Middleton. Peter ran up a steep sidewalk hill and toward the four-building complex, slowing down and joining the flow of early bird chemistry students. He saw a shaggy blond head ahead of him in the growing crowds and felt quite confused. "Gil?" he shouted.

The blond's head perked up. "Yo?" he said, turning around in a tank top with the California bear symbol on it in red and cargo shorts. "Peter!" he said, swimming through the people to his roommate. "Tsup, bro?"

Gil looked like he hadn't broken a sweat. "Not much, uh," Peter said, still awestruck. "How did you get here before me?"

A deer-in-headlights stare slapped Gil's face. "I… just walk fast, I guess? I dunno, man; I left the room like, five minutes ago. Why?"

"You weren't even awake when I left and I had to run here!" Peter said.

"Huh," Gil chuckled. "Weird. Maybe you're a slow runner?"

"Next time, invite me to go with you," Peter said.

"Sure thing, brah," Gil laughed, "I'm going in. Try to keep up."

Hundreds of students filed into the circular lecture hall labeled "Pementil Hall" in gold above the side entrance. It was fairly old, with plaques dedicated to the long list of Nobel Prize winners in faded bronze on the brick walls curving inward toward the two sets of double doors leading into the hall.

"I gotta use it," Gil said, turning around and heading down a flight of stairs on the outer wall of the inside of the building to the bathroom on the ground floor, "find us some seats in the front."

"Got it," Peter said, opening one door and peering down the rows that were comprised of over five hundred seats. Most of them were already taken, but the row in the front with the older, wooden desk chairs were completely empty. "Yikes," he said to himself, "when they said 'get here early,' maybe I should have listened." He started down the steps, looking right into the rows for anybody else he knew. "Never too late to start thinking about finals groups." He stepped onto the floor, seeing an empty podium with a laptop sitting open on it and the front row directly adjacent to it. He looked at the stairwell at the other end of the lecture room and his jaw dropped. Gil already took the seat at the end of the row. He sat down next to his roommate.

"Oh yeah, I'm back," Gil said nonchalantly, turning his attention to the group of sliding chalkboards and the large projector screen above them that put any IMAX screen to shame. "You know the front wall spins, right? That's hella dope!"

"Hello, everyone," Ann Possible's voice said from the back of the room. The entire class turned around and saw the red-headed doctor in her white lab coat and holding a cup of Starbucks, quickly making her way to the front of the room. "I hope you're excited to start your journey in the jungle of chemistry and quantitative analysis; I'll be your guide, and try to keep your hands and legs inside the vehicle at all times, not many students like the ride because it tends to get a bit-" She yelped and nearly fell down the stairs. She caught the railing. "bumpy at times." She made it to the floor and glanced at Peter and Gil before turning to her laptop. The projection screen turned from a blue screen to an enhanced view of the boards of the front of the room. "A few things about my class: be on time. We start on time all the time, if I'm not here, I will lose out on valuable note-taking time and whoever decides to be the professor that day has to scold me."

The class let out a murmur of a laugh in response.

"Try not to take too many notes," Professor Possible said, "I post the slides and the lectures online so watch the lecture now and absorb it later."

About a fourth of the class stood up and left, and in the small commotion Peter watched Ron snake his way to the front of the class and sit right next to Peter.

"Hey Pete, what did I miss?" he whispered, keeping the Rufus-shaped bulge in his shirt still. "Rufus ate too much last night so I was a bit late crushing his Tums into his Mister Fizz."

"Not much, she's just explaining the syllabus and-"

"No talking during class," Ann said, shooting a serious look at Peter. "There will be plenty of time to do that when I'm not looking. Finally, my office hours are from five to seven, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Any questions? No? Let's get started. For those sitting in the front, good luck on the questions I may ask during the lecture to make sure you're awake. I'm a bit excited; I haven't had a chance to use them since 2003. Sorry about the chairs. No one ever sits in the front during my class."

Peter swallowed nervously. He'd set his alarm earlier for Wednesday.

* * *

 _Ron_

"Keep your pants on, Rufus!" Ron half-whispered to the naked mole rat with stomach issues in his shirt, returning to the flashes of texts and symbols on the chalkboard as Mrs. Possible blew threw four lines of chemical equations. Ron glanced over at the kid from New York's notebook. If the guy wrote any faster, the pencil would catch flame. He looked at his own notebook, and he was doing well at first, but it devolved into drawings of his dreamed mechanical projects and monsters. He knew what lecture he was watching tonight.

"Oh!" Mrs. Possible piped, hearing a musical alarm on her computer go off in a tune that lifted Ron's confidence a bit. "That's nine o'clock; oh well, see you Wednesday and your first online quiz is due on Friday."

The class started chattering about everything and the students filed out. Ron saw Peter and his roommate talking about the lecture that nearly went over his head as they walked out. Mrs. Possible really hit the ground running. Rufus's head popped out of Ron's shirt and the mole rat started squeaking. "How are you doing, little buddy?" he said. "Don't worry, one more class and then breakfast. Nothing too bad for Ron Stoppable and Rufus, right?"

Rufus made a groaning sound before sinking into his owner's shirt.

"Just hold out, alright?" Ron said a bit louder, not noticing all of the strange stares he was receiving as he walked down two blocks. He crossed the street into the gray, metallic, Engineering block with ten to twelve tall buildings on a flat and paved plaza. He found the whole plaza boring and robotic. "I really hope the classes aren't this lifeless," he said, his eyes widening, "I have to make sure our mascot won't be this lifeless!" A boost of urgency, due to the time restraints between classes, worry about his mascot tryouts, and having to pee, pushed him from the start of the block to the inside of a thin building labeled "Corey Hall." Immediately Ron's nostrils were assaulted by the thick scent of burning electronics and heavy metallic odors. This hall wasn't as cool as the last one, Corey's first floor was a ghost town of blinking lights and old, unused lockers with large metal doors for the engineering labs. He found the nearest staircase and scaled four flights with ease, seeing the side of Peter's head before it vanished into a small classroom. He looked at the clock next to the door and took a quick breath of relief. He rushed into the room as the door closed, hitting him on the butt and sending him skipping forward into the professor. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, hitting the carpet and hearing papers going up into the air.

"Mister Stoppable," the professor said in a serious tone.

"I'm so so sorry," Ron said, scrambling around the floor grabbing as many papers and folders as he could. "Professor-" Ron looked up at the man he throttled and felt a mix of shock and relief. "Possible?!"

Ron could tell Kim's dad was fighting a grin and the professor helped him up. He smiled at his best friend's dad. "Sorry about that."

"Here you are, professor," Peter said from his side. Ron turned to the kid from New York and saw nearly all of the papers the doctor had dropped in a perfect stack. Ron looked at the crinkled bunch of papers in his hands and back at Peter and the rest of the class impatiently staring at him.

"Thanks," the professor said, taking the papers and setting them on the large brown desk at the front of the small classroom. "You can sit down now."

"Oh, yeah," Ron said, nervously chuckling his way to the desk directly in front of Peter.

"Hey Ron," Peter said with a small grin.

"Hi," Ron said, sitting down and rubbing Rufus's back through the shirt. He hushed Rufus and took out his notebook and pencil, looking up and nearly yelping at the walls of text on the whiteboard.

"Welcome to Engineering for the Physical and Life Sciences; I know I'm known for my work in Physics but biological engineering is where the field is headed," Kim's dad said, writing his name on the board with his office hours. "I'm not going to be as long-winded as other professors you may have had today, so I'll just open this class with a question: how are nature and engineering related? Think about that question for a couple minutes, talk about it with your neighbors- there are only eighteen kids in this lecture so feel free to get to know them- and don't raise your hand. Just brainstorm for a few minutes in small groups of three or four, then we'll begin today's lesson."

The class came alive with taking and Ron turned around in his seat, seeing Peter, Peter's roommate, and a frail, pale-skinned boy with jet-black hair and goggle-like glasses. He wore a black tee-shirt with a block of coding he couldn't understand and a distinct silver ring with a small metallic diamond rising over the knuckle. He wore all black.

He looked at his three partners, he guessed, and spoke first. "Hey guys, I'm Ron, from Middleton, majoring in mechanical engineering, and this is Rufus." The naked mole rat's head popped out from his shirt and the goggled kid recoiled in disgust.

"What in the hell is that?" he said with a thick, high-pitched Eastern European accent.

"My service animal," Ron lied, shooting a glare at the international student.

"Well he shouldn't be here," he bit back. "He should be in a lab."

"You don't get to tell me who should be where," Ron said, followed by a nod and angry chittering from Rufus. He wasn't going to let anyone diss his numero uno. "Naked mole rats have made a ton of contributions to engineering like anything digging and tunneling, so you can-"

"I am here on a Mensa Merit scholarship, full ride and don't have to work a job until I have my PhD," the accented boy said. "You look like you were the 'holistic' admit to make the school look like it doesn't care about the numbers, degenerate white _trash_."

"Hey, hey, just _chill_ out," Gil said, putting his index finger up to the lips of both Ron and the black-haired boy. Ron tried to move Gil's arm away but found Peter's roommate surprisingly firm. "It's little dudebro's like Rufus that give us the inspiration, man."

"Get your hand away from me," the boy in black snarled. "The sooner we get this pointless exercise over with, the better."

"Then I'll go next," Gil said with a content grin. "Name's Gil, from SoCal, chemical engineering major, and to elaborate on what I said before: when we see birds, mammals, insects, y'know, we think 'how can we make something easier like they did' and then we copy them. Life and machinery compliment each other, man. Life is driven by mechanisms but without life, those mechanisms have no purpose."

Ron was taken back a bit. He never would have expected that to come out of someone as laid back as Gil. "And going back to rodents," Peter said, "many of the algorithms that determine how diseases are spread and how we orient quadrupedal machines use the structure of rodents. It's not just in function, but in the anatomical-"

"Who are you?" the boy in black said, "and did I give you permission to talk during my turn?"

"Peter, Queens, New York, biochemistry and biomedical engineering," Peter said, sounding less excited. "Go ahead."

"Well it's about time," the boy in black said, "my name is Dmitry Semjonov, hailing from Mumansk- in Russia, I'm guess you didn't know- majoring in biochemistry and biomedical engineering as well. You are both wrong: nature and engineering have the aspect of control around them. They are our tools, we are simply smart enough to know that we can place ourselves above other beings by putting them down and reinventing them to better suit our needs. We, I at least, can become gods among men by lowering the floor for everyone else, and I plan on doing just that. Look at the greats: Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Electro, Sandman- they have all used nature for their bidding and I plan to do the same thing. Stay out of my way."

Gil and Peter glanced at each other and at Ron uneasily. Peter seemed the most disturbed by it. Welcome to the West, guy.

"Way to state your motive," Ron said.

"What did you say?" Dmitry asked, staring at the blonde with his beady eyes intently.

"Nothing," Ron said, writing down Dmitry's name in his notebook for future reference. Ron's hunch on things like undercover crazies was usually correct, even if Kim found some of his theories a bit farfetched.

"Alright," Mister Possible said, silencing the class and pulling Ron's attention back to the board. The professor curled his arms in the air slowly for the whole class to see the motion. "I heard many answers out there, some a bit more _interesting_ than others, but something we can all agree on is being presented by my gains."

Some of the class laughed. Ron related the equation written on the board to the curling motion, but that was about it. "That underlying principles of physics and mathematics can be used to explain both," Dmitry blurted. "Professor, would you mind fixing your mobility formula? It's completely incorrect; how unexpected. I thought you were the best."

The class went silent and Ron's jaw dropped. Rufus's eyes widened and he sunk into Ron's front pocket. "Excuse me?" Kim's dad said, his face no longer kindly smiling.

"No, it's correct, he just simplified it by pulling out the multiplicative of the function after the infinite sum," Peter said from behind Ron. The blond tried to make sense of what was on the board and even though he could, he started to think that maybe he wasn't the most experienced freshman in the room. Ron glanced at Dmitry who was glaring a hole in the side of Peter's head. He turned his attention back to the board and gasped. Kim's dad had moved on and was writing faster, adding formula after formula on the board. Ron feverishly started writing down what was on the board, while being mindful to write Dmitry's name down every now and again. He wondered how her morning was going. No way could it get worse than embarrassment, getting insulted, and hand cramps to really kick in the school year, but he was excited anyway. With her on the cheer squad and him in the mascot suit, it'd just be like old times.

* * *

 _Kim_

The attention was great, but after four years, being the public hero could get a bit annoying. One of the few things she missed about high school was that everyone knew who she was and they were over it within the month, except for Bonnie, and she knew that. At a giant school with thousands of students, it would be a bit harder for everyone to forget. She's saved the world once or twice before anyone outside Middleton knew the world was in danger, and _this_ made her afraid to go outside sometimes. She and Bonnie stood in the elevator, waiting to rush to the breakfast halls before they closed at noon. So was everyone else. The elevator was packed and a taller guy's constant fidgeting to pull his phone out of his pocket kept messing with her hair and bumping the back of her head. She wore a plain purple V-neck tee shirt and green cargo shorts with tennis shoes and would have to change into something more sporty for tryouts later that day, but she was in a rush. "Excuse me," she said to the student with phone troubles, having to look up at the mountainous young man, "your elbow keeps hitting my head."

"Maybe it'll fix something in there," Bonnie said. She was already in her sports shorts and black tank top. Kim never really liked to wish ill on someone, but if Bonnie didn't make cheer, Kim wouldn't be necessarily angry about it.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the tall man said, turning to face the redhead in the cramped elevator. He looked down and gasped. "You're Kim Possible, right? I'm from San Diego and we absolutely love you down there!"

At times, she couldn't wait to meet the fans. "I'm flattered," Kim said, half laughing. "Thank you. It really means a lot to know that people know I'm on their side."

"So then you are Kim?" the girl standing next to Bonnie said, pushing past the brunette with her phone drawn. "My friends back home won't believe I'm going to school with _the_ Kim Possible." The fan put her arm around Kim and kept the flash on, taking three photos with the half-smiling hero before she said something. "Oh, sorry; I should have asked if you-"

"No, it's fine," Kim said, shuffling uncomfortably in the elevator. She stood on her tiptoes to look at the floor number. She swallowed nervously as the elevator ringed to stop on another floor. By the time they hit the first floor, ten people had taken more than forty pictures with her. The door to the ground floor opened and everyone spilled out, with a few more devoted fans following Kim.

"Come on, Kim," Bonnie said with a devious grin, "you know you _love_ it. Of course you would like ten more selfies, absolutely she can autograph your folders, and-" She took a shorter boy by the arm and nearly pushed him into Kim. "Kim, you said you'd take him out, right?"

The boy hopped back, his face beet red with embarrassment. "What what what-"

"Bonnie, knock it off!" Kim exclaimed with an angry scowl, turning back to the pranked classmate. "She's just joking, don't take it seriously, okay?"

Her kimmunicator went off in her pocket. "The brave and gallant, off again to save a day with her boyfriend-"

"Shhhh!" Kim said, pulling the purple smartphone-styled device from her pocket. She let out a sigh of relief as "Wade is calling" scrolled across the screen instead of Betty's. She had enough of the GJN to last her awhile after yesterday's indoctrination to the evil of mutants. Her own experiences have her always at odds with mutantkind, but she was a bit suspicious over Betty's sudden urgency to capture a particular mutant, when certainly they could have gone out and found anyone themselves if SHIELD was as loud about their operations as she said. There was something she wasn't telling Kim, but she had felt that way since she set out on her first mission under them. She tapped the green icon. "What's the sitch?" she said quickly.

"A collection of hairy dweebs are robbing the Middleton National Bank on Fifth Street and DeLacey," Wade said, taking a long sip of soda. "They're carrying some pretty heavy weaponry so I wouldn't recommend trying to take them all at once, and there are quite a few of them."

"Don't worry," Kim said, "with Ron and Rufus there, they'll be outnumbered. Watch for me on the news at noon, will you?"

"Of course, now get going," Wade said, "the bank isn't going to un-rob itself."

"Bonnie!" Kim loudly, seeing Bonnie about to go into the dining hall.

"What?" Bonnie said, sounding annoyed already.

"Did you lock our window?" Kim asked.

"No, why-"

"Yes!" Kim said, running around the back of the building and whipping out a grappling gun from her pocket and firing it at the window to their room. She quickly threw on her mission outfit and jumped out the window, racing across campus and downtown toward the bank.

"Kim! Wait up!" she heard her sidekick shout from behind her. She turned around, bouncing on her toes as Ron pushed past people sprinting down the sidewalk in his black sweater and cargo pants.

"Ron, come on!" Kim said, turning back around and darting forward again. The duo made impressive time, traveling two miles on foot, flipping over cars, grappling onto streetlamps, even using the hood of some cars as temporary transport, but they still weren't fast enough. As Kim approached the concrete steps to the large, square, glassy bank building, a familiar projecting sound made her stop cold. She looked up, seeing a streak of red and blue in the clear blue sky dart toward the rotating doors on a line of white, sticky material that acted like a grappling hook.

"That guy again?" Ron said.

"Spider-Man," Kim said sternly, racing toward the doors of the bank. "Get ready for a fight, Ron."

"Aw man!" Ron whined, running into the building behind her.

Kim looked around the room, seeing seven beefy men in black ski masks with machine guns. Three of them stood behind the bank teller counters in the back of the building, two were on the main floor, one stood in front of a door labeled "employees only" behind the bank counters while the seventh one made his way up the stairs with several empty duffel bags. The two men on the main floor seemed to be too occupied to notice her, as they were emptying their magazines at something on the high ceiling. "Get the bastard!" one of the men shouted. He screamed as two sticky white beams grabbed him and his friend by the shoulders, yanking them into the air and suspending them. Some of the panicked bullet spray flew toward the doorway.

"Use the SPC!" Kim said, rolling out of the way and tossing one of her grappling hooks to Ron.

"Got it," Ron said, catching it and aiming at the teller counters.

Kim fired the hook behind the teller counters and hit the retract button, using it as a zip line over the counter. "I have a million things I'd rather be doing right now, so at least put up a good fight!" she said, sailing toward the three gunmen.

"No! Don't listen to her! Don't shoot us!" Ron exclaimed, flying toward them as well.

One of the gunmen took his eyes off the ceiling and gasped at the redhead quickly closing the gap. "Boys! We have bigger problems! It's Team-"

Kim didn't let him finish that statement by kicking him in the chest and taking his gun, whipping it at another gunmen but finding him and his friend already unconscious. "Ron, was that you?"

"I wish it was," Ron said, "he went toward the stairs!" Rufus crawled out of Ron's pocket and scampered up the stairs. Kim and Ron followed their companion, finding the gunmen waiting for them glued to the wall. Kim started to get annoyed and rushed into the back area, seeing five more gunmen plastered to the ceiling or on the ground with bruises. Kim growled in aggravation and made it to the room guarded by a tall steel door that had been blown apart by some kind of explosive.

She stepped into the small, boxy room with nothing but tall file cabinets that had been yanked open. Three men in masks with bags sat in the center of the room, tied up by the white substance and knocked out. Behind them was a message written in the sticky material: _Too slow! Sincerely, Spider-Man_. She looked around the room, seeing only the masked men in the center and bank papers scattered all over the floor. Rufus stood up on his hind legs, looking confused and slowly chittering.

"He was right here," Ron said, paying no mind as Rufus climbed back into his pocket.

"There was no other exit besides that door, meaning that he slipped by us while we were running down the hallway," Kim said, picking up some of the material. "He wasn't this fast last time we met." It was very dense and smooth, with short adhesive segments and longer, non adhesive sections in between the short ones, like a real spider's webbing. She took a fairly sized sample of webbing and stuffed it into a small travel bag strapped to her thigh. Her parents would love to crack it and her brothers could accidentally tie each other up in it, and maybe it would bring her closer to the new vigilante's identity.

"We weren't expecting him, Kim," Ron said, following her out of the bank after a last sweep for crooks. "Next time we see him, and we will see him many more times, you can kick his butt."

"You're thinking he'll be a frequent guest too, right?" Kim asked with a hint of worry.

"Superheroes don't just visit, especially from a city with more crime than us," Ron said, "Batman never just visits Metropolis, Superman never just visits Gotham. He's working with someone on something big."

"That someone is S.H.I.E.L.D, according to the Director," Kim said, looking at her kimmunicator and expecting it to go off. It also worked as an effective watch, and she didn't have much time before her next class.

"But why are they here?" Ron asked.

"Those are questions for later," Kim said, darting across the street. "I have to go; class at one, sorry!"

"Hey!" Ron shouted, struggling to keep up with his best friend. Kim reached her dorm building and grappled into the window again, stopping cold again at the two tall, lean men in black suits and sunglasses in the room. They were twins: pale skin, brown hair in buzzcuts, and both standing just above six feet tall.

"The webbing," one agent said.

"Doctor Director wants it," the other one said. They even sounded the same. "All of it."

"Why do you want it?" Kim asked, folding her arms. "There's more to this than the protection of mankind and I want to know if I'm going to keep working for-"

"The webbing in your bag," the agent said with an emotionless face. "Now."

"Not until you tell me what's really going on here," Kim said, standing her ground. "I'm as suspicious of Spider-Man and mutants like Shego, but the Director's attitude toward me has changed like night and day and you will get nothing until I know exactly what I'm working for."

"It will be revealed once you're ready," the agent said.

"Don't make us come get it," the other agent said.

"No need to have to tell the Director that you got beat up by a girl, alright?" Kim said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a wad of webbing. "Just tell the Director that when she wants to stop keeping secrets, I'll be more willing to help."

"Just give us what we came for unless you want us to take matters into our own hands," the agents said, stepping forward and grabbing at the webbing. Kim's eyes narrowed and she threw one agent over her shoulder while kicking the other man in his cheek, knocking him on his butt. She placed what they wanted in one of the agents' ties.

"I'm not your coworker, nor am I getting paid to put up with your attitude," Kim scolded, "so if you're going to threaten me, make sure you're in a place for me tp say 'yes sir,' are we clear?"

The agents stood up, emotionless, stone-faced and monotonous in voice. "We'll tell her you send her your regards and wish to get in touch." The agents opened the door to Kim's room and walked out. Kim quickly slammed the door and felt around in her pocket until the tiniest strand of webbing stuck to her hand. She smirked at her own trickery, but it quickly faded remembering the use of force they were cleared to use from the Director. It wasn't like this before with the GJN, and she was going to find out why she was no longer a freelancer with the sudden appearance of the mutant "threat," whether it be through Spider-Man or the Director herself.

* * *

 _Shego_

The money wasn't good, but it was money. She was twenty one, had just gotten out of college with a bachelor's in child development and psychology, and instead of living a quiet life with a steady job after quitting a superhero team, she was here, in a cave lair, with this idiot. Maybe she missed the action, maybe she didn't want to spend her day behind a desk, but this was her reality. Plus she was green and wore a black and green jumpsuit with clawed gloves and boots all the time. She couldn't go into a job interview like that, at least for any non-mercenary jobs. She sent a volley of side kicks at the punching bag hanging in the workout room in the lowest level of the Middleton lair. She threw a powerful right hook into a picture of Kim's face near the top of the bag, accidentally blowing the bag off the chain. She was getting paid for losing, and although she loved the "getting paid" part, she hated the losses. "SHEGO! Get up here!"

The mercenary rolled her eyes and took off her black sparring gloves. She wore a light blue tank top and black gym shorts and she put on a pair of suspiciously acquired sandals on before leaving the room and taking an elevator up to the top floor that functioned as a large, usually empty, laboratory. The doors opened and Shego walked up to her boss. Drakken was quietly chuckling as he scrolled through blueprint pictures on his giant multi-monitor supercomputer built into the large rock in the center of the lair. His workbench and desktop chair was a large, comfortable leather chair; she got a high school desk and chair. "Did you find another YouTube Poop video of yourself?"

"Nevermind those, Shego," her evil, blue boss said with a yellow grin. "I was thinking about yesterday."

"You were _thinking_?" Shego gasped. "Do go on."

"Shego, I swear, I-" Drakken balled up his fists and took a deep breath. It was one of the few perks for being the only merc who would put up with him. "I was thinking of a new way to defeat the blasted 'All That' idol, Kim Possible, and her sidekick, as you know."

"That's kind of our job," Shego said, smirking at the steam coming off her boss's head.

"And then I remembered that another hero thwarted my plans and started doing some research," Drakken said.

"Oh, you mean the guy we specifically wanted to fight-"

"He isn't just an ordinary hero like Kim or Ron, Shego," Drakken said, "he is a superhero, a mutant gifted with supernatural powers, and he's a very high profile one at that."

"You sound like you've never heard of superheroes before," Shego said, rolling her eyes. "Were you asleep when aliens invaded New York three years ago?"

"He's worked with the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Defenders, and whatever the Super Hero Squad is, among other freaks that were supposed to _stay_ in the East, and is considered to have the ability to lift ten tons, the speed to outrun a speeding car, the reflexes and agility to dodge bullets, and defeat us _and_ our opponents with relative ease!" Drakken said angrily.

"I don't know about that," Shego said, figuring he was up all night reading the fanpages on Spider-Man's speculated powers. There's no way something that could dodge bullets and lift cars would have such a problem with the likes of Kim Possible. "We gave him a run for his money yesterday, and he ran away from the GJN agents. Maybe if you had stuck around instead of leaving, you would know."

"My point is that if this plan doesn't work against that little creep than I don't know what will," Drakken growled.

"You say that every time you come up with a new plan to beat Kim," Shego said. After four years, she had no idea where he kept getting these plans.

"Spider-Man is a lesser threat to us," Drakken said, gesturing her over to the screen and presenting a gray and red metal spider standing at ten feet with robotic, pincer-like toes on each of its eight slim legs, "but I won't take any chances."

"Oh not this again," Shego said, rolling her eyes. "Don't do that thing where you try to imitate them then get angry when you lose and simply make more of-"

"And I made _eight_ of them just in case!" Drakken cackled. "It's foolproof, my sidekick!'

"Why do I even talk," Shego said bluntly.

"Oh, Shego," Drakken said, rolling in his chair across the cold, stone floor to squeeze Shego's cheeks. "Because I value what you have to say."

"Don't touch me," Shego warned quickly.

"Got it, still mad about the whole abandoning thing, again," Drakken said, sliding over to the computer again. "We leave at five!"

"It's five forty five," Shego said.

"We leave immediately!"

"Remember that you have three mandatory evil laughs schedules at 5:50, 5:53, and 5:58," Shego said.

"We leave at six! Get in uniform!" Drakken exclaimed, looking down at himself. He already was in uniform, but Shego guessed he had been up all night. "Meet me in the garage of evil-hicles!"

"You got it, boss," Shego said dryly, taking the elevator back down to the basement. She walked past the gym to a small room with a small bed, mirror on the wall, and closet. There was one dim light bulb illuminating the cold cube and her uniform lay folded at the edge of the bed. She hopped into the skin tight uniform, quickly brushed her hair and did her makeup. She took a nail filer to sharpen her gloves and headed to the middle floor, a huge parking lot filled with half-built and broken automobiles, except for the eight spider robots lined up by the wide, steel-shuttered garage door that led to a shallow undersea cave in Middleton's largest lake. She noticed Drakken had yet to be seen. "Typical." She leaned up against the wall and nearly let out a content sigh.

"Shego!" Drakken barked, stomping into the garage. "Why don't the controls work on these things?"

"I didn't build the robots," Shego said, "maybe ask the _fifteen_ mechanical engineers you had me kidnap to build you a jacuzzi game room."

"That would require bothering Todd," Drakken said with a grave expression. "I let Todd do his work and stay out of the way until Friday when it's time for money."

"Speaking of money," Shego said, "don't be late with my payment on Wednesday like last week, or the week before that, or the week-"

"Haha!" Drakken exclaimed, hitting the right button on the remote in his hand. The red, glassy centers in the top of their abdomens glowed red. "Pick one and hop on, Shego!"

"I was telling you something important-"

"It can wait!" Drakken shouted, climbing onto one of the spiders and opening the garage. The spider he sat upon leaped onto the cavernous cave wall and quickly ascended toward the surface.

Shego's head felt like it was going to explode but she went with it anyway, finding the closest spider and following Drakken on it. They reached the outskirts of the city and within seconds, the screaming started. Shego grinned and fired a green and black energy bolt from each hand into the sky, announcing their presence. They were the biggest baddies in the state, and she wanted everyone to know it. If they weren't as infamous, she wouldn't really care, however. The income would still be the same, or she'd be hired by a better villain, but there were no other choices. Sometimes, she felt thankful that her only opponents were a teenage girl and an agency that seemed to not really care about the operation she and Drakken usually ran. "Aw, come back!" Shego shouted to the fleeing civilians. "We just wanted to say hello! No, guys, come on!" The street was abandoned in under one minute, and not before long did the familiar wail of the police siren attack her ears.

"Stay alert, we have company!" Drakken said.

"Trust me, there is no possible way I'm sleeping on this thing," Shego said.

A team of eight police cars filled the streets and doors opened, guns drawn. "Get off of the vehicle and lean up against the wall!

"Combat mode." Drakken laughed and suddenly the spider stood up on two legs, the other six morphing into laser guns. Shego cocked an eyebrow at her own spider.

"Combat mode?" Shego said, grinning as the metal monster copied the master's pet. "Wow, Drakken, you've really outdone yourself."

"I can't outdo me," Drakken said, "I'm _me_! Fire!"

"And I regret saying anything," Shego said, looking down at her pet. "Fire?"

The policemen screamed and hit the deck as the spiders fired a quick burst of blue laser fire from the six legs into the cars, setting them all on fire. "Come on, Shego; to downtown!"

The six guns morphed back into legs and followed Drakken for two miles through the early evening city and its orange skies, looting, stealing, and assaulting with a fiery tint to welcome them in, the fun part of the job. Shego chuckled at the large amount of jewelry and diamonds she was stuffing in her pockets, and anyone saying anything as she and her boss drove by warranted a blast to the chest. They approached a small but busy park in the center of the city with a tall, pristine tree in the center of it. The little children and adults already ran from the site, they were expecting the target to show up sooner. In the meantime, they could do whatever they wanted. Like a child on a bike, she rode through the park tearing up the dirt and grass, along with running over as many bystanders as possible like they were arcade points. She looped around the park twice before noticing the news cameras discreetly watching her and her boss from the street square surrounding the park. "At least get my good side!" she exclaimed, firing a volley of green and black energy beams from her fingers at the cameras. They were intercepted by several globs of webbing and Shego looked up, sure enough seeing Spider-Man drop into a tree.

"Look, I get it, working with a guy this long with no rise in position may look horrible on a resume," Spider-Man said, "but you'd think after yesterday one would at least start the process of finding a new job." He leaped from the trees and was greeted by a metal hand to the face. Spider-Man flipped back, landing on his feet and crossing his arms.

"In today's economy, it's a bit tough to find a job where I'm not overqualified," Shego responded, hopping off the back of her spider. Drakken followed her sidekick until the two spiders were adjacent and he slid off one of the legs.

"Well, you know what they say," Spider-Man said, "when you're at rock bottom, the only way to go is up. You could always just not be evil to everyone around you and help out in the spike of crime affecting the inner city populace; the good guys get much better benefits, less hospital bills, and merchandising!"

"I gave that up a long time ago, but I'll give you that you're much better at this than Kim," Shego said with a smirk.

"No he's not, no he's not, _no he's not!_ " Drakken said bitterly. "Bring me a _real_ hero! Where's Kim Possible?!"

"She'll be here in about two minutes," Spider-Man said, "saw her on my way here with a couple men in suits. Wanna bet it'll only take me half the time to beat you?"

"I've read up on you," Drakken said.

"Wow! A fan already?" Spider-Man placed his hands over his heart. "I'm flattered."

"You've been bouncing around the east coast superhero teams like a mutt kicked from pound to pound," Drakken said, "there's a reason why no one kept you and that's why you're here!"

"I don't know about that," Spider-Man said, bouncing on his toes. "I'm on tee shirts and pajama pants and cool tourist mugs, but if you want to talk about failure, I don't ever recall 'Drakken' getting recruited by the Masters of Evil. If you did, maybe I'd take you and your artistic expressions next to you seriously."

Shego gasped. Drakken had waited for a response from them for two and a half years with no response. She grimaced at their masked threat. No one besides her gets to make Drakken feel bad about himself. "I'll feed whatever's left of you to the crocodiles infesting Drakken's pool."

"Attack, attack, attack!" Drakken barked, running behind Shego while the spiders jumped into the air.

Shego's hands came alive with black and green flames and she threw a powerful cross with her right hand that would normally send Kim flying, and speaking of the devil, Kim, Ron, and four GJN agents broke from the trees surrounding the park and raced toward the one-on-four melee. Shego's arm was caught in a familiar grapple but the grip was so strong her technique to slip out of it wasn't working. She got flipped onto her back and looked up, barely rolling out of the way from a nasty heel kick that left a hole in the mud. Shego hopped to her feet and had to duck again with Spider-Man as a blue ice bolt from Drakken's freeze gun sailed overhead. "Watch out!"

"Hit harder!" Drakken shouted, firing several ice spikes with a shotgun-styled cryo weapon at the spider dancing toward their arch nemesis with the spider bots in hot pursuit.

Kim moved past Spider-Man and ran head-on toward Shego. "Good to see he saved you for me," Kim said, throwing all her might at the mercenary with a flying spin kick.

Shego ducked and shot upward, nailing Kim's chin. "I am too; it's been too long since I've felt my boot in your back."

Shego and Kim clashes in a contest of martial prowess, each fighter stern and determined to find the slightest weakness and exploit it. Kim's weakness, of course, was her partner. "Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim, KIM!" Ron shouted very quickly.

Kim whipped around, giving Shego the devastating kidney punch she needed. Kim flew across the grass and into one of the agents throwing fists at Spider-Man. Their guns were strewn about the grass, covered in webbing. One spider was on its back legs, holding Ron in the air and slowly crushing him while Rufus tried gnawing on the steel. Shego chuckled at Ron's face of sheer terror and started to fire green bolts at Ron's legs, making the young man swing for his life. Kim climbed to her feet and kicked back, hitting Shego square in the nose and running toward Ron to sweep the metal bug off its feet. "I'll make you wish you never did that!"

"Did I ruin your nose job?" Kim asked, hitting her in the face with her grappling claw and yanking her into the spider holding Ron. She hit the bug in the side hard with her head and when the first bug fell, she saw the second one in a heap with fist-shaped holes and webbing all over it. Drakken was out cold and only two agents with knives and the second robot were left to fight the new vigilante. Within seconds, she heard the sputtering of a dying machine and the heavy groan of injured agents.

Shego rolled to her feet and blocked a side kick, sending a punch into Kim's cheek that immediately started bruising. Shego threw another punch at the other one. "I thought I'd make it even."

"Two against one is sounding pretty odd to me," Ron said, standing up and charging toward Shego with a battlecry.

Kim and Ron drove Shego toward the battle of suits and the girl in green rolled back, kicking Ron in the stomach and Kim in the chest. She stood over the two heroes with fire on her palms pointed at them. "This has been a long time coming, Kimmie."

"It hasn't been long enough," Kim said, pointing past Shego.

A red fist hit her cheek with more power than she had ever felt. She grimaced and threw a right hook enhanced with energy. Spider-Man caught her wrist and seemed to ignore the energy burning through his glove as he slowly turned Shego's hand upward. He wasn't nearly this strong yesterday. She noticed he had fair skin; it narrowed his secret identity down to all the white guys in Middleton. Great. "What is this, condensed gamma waves?" he asked. "Blackball radiation? Come on, at least give me something I can shout in despair if you land a hit."

Shego threw another punch. "It's 300 milligrams of knock-out!"

Spider-Man ducked and sent an elbow strike into her stomach and a kick back into Kim's chest. "Oh really? Well, that's only half the recommended dosage," he said, dodging and blocking strikes from in front of him and behind, almost like he could see them before they happened. Shego reckoned it must be his Spider-Senses. "Ask your doctor if you experience headaches, sneezing, itching, coughing, nausea, dry eyes, swelling, soreness, bruising, and-or uncontrollable diarrhea after you use 'knock-out.'" Spider-Man ducked a punch and she ended up exchanging face shots with Kim. Spider-Man whipped around, kicking Kim in the side of the head before drawing the mercenary to him with a webline. "Symptoms may vary!" Spider-Man said cheerily, before everything in Shego's vision went from red to black.

* * *

 _Peter_

"That was so cool for our first night," Vivian said, taking off her lab coat in a small, well-lit laboratory with no windows and several black-top tables dedicated to developing research techniques. Chemistry equipment stuffed the overhead shelves and the whole room smelled like burnt nail polish remover; the isolation of the organic material was the easiest part, but the worst smelling. Doctor Possible had left the room to get the keys to the lab doors from the office on the higher floor of the square lab building. "Sure we got yelled at, a lot, but it's such a great experience to be working with _the_ Doctor Possible, right? And who knew you knew so much about biosynthetic strings!" He and Vivian started talking about biology, then engineering, then somehow ended up on the topic of spider silk while cleaning the lab glassware and stowing the organic material in a supercooling freezer. He completely nerded out, something his last research partner found a tad annoying dealing with gamma radiation. He was glad someone found it interesting.

"I was kind of a nerd for stuff like that during high school," Peter grinned. Saying he invented a way to capitalize on the strength on silk could have also been good in this conversation, but it might give someone a hint about his secret. Good thing she knew more about it than he did. "And for sure! Kim warned me just to get used to the shouting- it won't be stopping any time soon." He took off his coat and placed it on a hangar in the closet of the lab next to his lab partner's. "Let's hope that the smell in the room keeps Doctor Possible's attention off of us for awhile."

"I'm afraid that won't happen, Mister Parker," Doctor Possible said, entering the room with her graduate student instructor, a tall and lanky, angry Norwegian guy with blonde hair. Peter and Vivian's faces went red. "The walls are thin, watch what you say. Matt here will do the last minute sweep; it's eight fifty five right now so I really have to go."

Matt brushed past the two worthless undergrads and put a set of gloves on, going through the shelves and examining the glassware. Peter and Vivian turned to him. "Is there anything we can do to-"

"No," Matt said bluntly.

"Well alrighty then," Vivian said, following the doctor out of the room. "Come on, Peter."

Peter threw his backpack onto one shoulder and pushed up his glasses, following the blonde brainiac out of the room. They followed the doctor through a very narrow hall to a steep, cold stairwell going down, and by the time the undergraduates' feet touched the steps, the doctor started picking at their performance. "When we measure amounts of reagents with micropipettes, we never settle within the margin of error unless we're dealing with amounts that are too small to be used by a P-50. Vivian, your bob needs to be tighter wound during lab, so either have Peter do it for you or we're going to have problems. Peter, I understand your enthusiasm for the project, but putting 38 grams of isolated alpha amino acids in the wrong containment freezer because you're giddy will most certainly lead to disaster."

"We understand," Peter and Vivian said.

"Good," the doctor said, opening the stairwell doors to the empty, small plaza floor with two spiral staircases going up, "because the next few steps to ensure the correct orientation of the biosynthesis by supercooling the amino acids below negative eighty degrees involves exact timing, and don't think I didn't notice you swishing the separated chloroplasts four times, not three, Vivian." They stepped outside. "Overall, you could have done worse. Be here tomorrow, same time, alright? And don't be late, Peter; every minute counts."

"Sorry about that," Peter said.

"Don't apologize to me now," Doctor Possible said, "just don't do it again." She started a brisker pace in front of them toward her car parked on the street. "Have a nice-"

"Mom!" Kim's voice shouted down the street.

The three scientists turned toward the spitting image of the professor in her mission gear with Ron lagging behind.

Kim stopped in front of her mom and quickly grinned at Peter. "Hey Peter, loved your stance on american cultures today in political science; we should catch up, okay?" She reached into her small bag strapped to her thigh and presented a small string to the Doctor.

"It was a good debate with that one guy from Arizona, but you ended it fairly swiftly," Peter said, his voice trailing off as his vision became unnaturally sharp. He lifted his glasses and squinted at the strand while Kim told the doctor about her run-in with the east coast superhero. He swallowed nervously. That was a web strand that hadn't degraded. If it hadn't degraded in between his last run-in with Kim and now, then Peter Parker could be in trouble if Spider-Man didn't fix it. He was the common denominator in the Stark, Banner, and Connors labs that helped him perfect his artificial webbing, and if Kim's as good of a detective as she is a spy, Spider-Man's secret may not stay secret. He should have seen this coming, but he wanted his name in the published journals. Peter felt every muscle fiber tense, waiting to snatch the strand and run.

"Peter," Vivian said, seeing the stress in her partner's face. "Are you alright?"

Peter felt like he had just been splashed with cold water. He jumped back five feet and his face went red as the three women stared at him with concern. He tried laughing it off. "There was a spider."

Vivian's face lit up. "Where? What species? Hairy? Smooth?"

Peter spat out a random spider species name and helped Vivian search for it, eavesdropping on Kim's conversation.

"With luck," Kim said, handing her mom the strand, "you can finally have an example of hyper-dense superpolymers or whatever you call it, and finding the brains behind it might lead to the person behind the mask."

"Thanks, sweetie-" Ann caught herself. "Miss Possible. Go get some rest. Now."

"What do you think of Spider-Man so far, Kim?" Peter asked. "I've seen you and him on the news duking it out." He hadn't, but it was a good enough excuse. "Coming from his territory, I couldn't imagine why you two were fighting."

Peter watched Kim's expression darken. "I'm still unsure whether I like him or not. It's only been two days, but after doing some research on him, he'd make a good ally or a powerful foe. As for what's happened recently, let's just say he and I have a conflict of interests."

"Well, I hope you settle it. You guys would make a great team!" Peter said, watching the Doctor pocket the strand after several minutes of handling it. He had to get to a lab, fast. He couldn't let that fall into the wrong hands- one strand wouldn't be enough to do anything harmful, but a handful would lead to some problems.

"Sorry Kim, but I really have to go," the Doctor said, hugging her daughter. "I'll pull up anything I can on this and get back to you as soon as I have a guess."

"Thanks, mom," Kim said cheerfully. She turned toward where she came and started running. "See you later, Peter! We should eat lunch together sometime!"

Peter waved and he and his partner started walking toward the dorm complex. "It was light outside when we started," he said, just to break the silence. It had become pretty dark outside, it being 9:00 and all.

"That just goes to show how much time we lose trying to figure out what isn't wrong," Vivian said.

"Or dropping acids in more dangerous acids and hoping we don't kill ourselves in the process," Peter said dryly.

Vivian laughed. "You have little faith, Peter. You also sound like you've done this before."

"I held a few positions in New York," Peter said, "but at least Doctor Stark waited for me to mess up before he yelled at me."

Vivian gasped. "Tony Stark?! _Iron Man?!_ "

"You know about New York's superheroes, then?" Peter said, curious to see if people out here other than the GJN had a positive opinion.

"Not many," Vivian admitted, "most of the states in the west vilify them, but a scientist always does her own research."

"What do you think of Spider-Man?" Peter said. "And why are they vilified out here?"

"He's my second favorite, Iron Man being first," she said, making Peter's face light up. Back home, he was constantly overshadowed by the main Avengers, but he didn't do his job for fame. Still, he felt honored that he was in someone's top five. "I was pretty glad when Spider-Man suddenly showed up here; being such a young superhero is very inspiring to the youth, but you won't find anything I said in the media. Some higher-ups from who knows where is drilling the media with a bigoted 'mutants-are-bad' rhetoric because of the Magneto incident in the 80's. The feds let the states choose where they stood on the issue, and, well, here we are. I hope Spider-Man's presence here can change some of that."

"I hope so too," Peter said, "considering that enemies like Magneto could easily come over here and have a great time with all of Middleton's metal, we need people like the Avengers and Spider-Man to keep him in control." Peter knew that statement firsthand. "I never would have guessed the divide between the east and west would go this far."

"So much is happening on both sides of the spectrum that one never has time to think about it," Vivian said, stopping at the crosswalk sign keeping them from the residential buildings. Peter noticed a tall man in a gray hoodie and black jeans across the street grin at Vivian. She noticed and her expression turned to an embarrassed scowl. "Let's cross that way," she said, turning to the other crosswalk at the four-way intersection.

Peter kept the grinning creeper in the corner of his eye and followed his partner in an L-shape across the street. The creeper waited for them and followed them back to the dorm complex. "You go on ahead, I'll-"

Vivian grimaced. "I'm going to head inside and call campus PD," she said fairly loudly so the creep could hear. They were the only three in the center of the complex. Everyone else was eating or heading to parties; the latter was standard during the first two weeks of school. "Get inside, Peter, it's getting late." She quickly turned toward him with one last look of concern before closing the doors to the building behind her. Peter's eyes widened and he ducked a knife from the creeper and he stepped back, elbowing him in the stomach and ribcage. Peter stepped on his foot and swept him to the side, dropping him like a rock.

Peter stood over the surprised man and shook his finger at him. "Now why'd you go and make me do that?" Peter asked, snatching the knife and crumpling it in his hands like paper. "Get out of here unless you want to see what a punching bag feels like." Within seconds, the predator was gone.

The doors to Vivian's building opened again and the blonde poked her head out. "Peter, are you coming? I just called the police and-" She saw only Peter outside. "Where's the _other_ guy? I thought you would have texted me when you got away. He wasn't focused on you."

"I told him I was undercover campus police and he ran," Peter said, keeping his expression serious. "I don't know where he ran off to." That part was true for the time being. Some spiders hunt at night.

"I gave the police his full description, and they'll be around the complex tonight," Vivian said, stepping outside. "Did he hurt you?"

"No, I didn't give him that chance," Peter said.

"Good for you," Vivian said, her voice staying in a range of concern, "but don't wait out here for something like that to happen. I get that you're from a rougher state but what if that guy had a weapon? Do you know any self defense? If anything, you should have gone inside to call the police!"

"Then I could be one heck of a car salesman with lying skills like that," Peter said.

"Nevertheless, don't do that again," she warned. "I need a lab partner, Peter."

"Right, right, my bad," Peter said, keeping the grin on his face. ""I'll go jumping out of buildings next, how about that?"

"That's not funny," Vivian said, crossing her arms. "I'm being serious. You can't get hurt now, unless you want to destroy your GPA."

"Come on, I'm just kidding," Peter laughed.

"Well, I'm going to go eat soon," Vivian said, "so I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely," Peter said. "Stay safe." He walked back to his building and made it into his room unnoticed, changing into his Spider-Man costume under his tee shirt, jacket, and jeans with the mask and gloves stuffed in pockets.

"Yo!" Gil's voice shouted from the other side of the door. "Peter! I saw that!"

Peter gasped and quickly concealed his web shooters under his sleeves. "Saw what?"

Gil opened the door and he and his surfer posse walked in. "You and the girl, right before the elevator closed on Ralph's face."

"It hurt," one of the Gil-clones said. "A lot."

"What about it?" Peter asked.

"That one guy was messing with her so she ran inside so you could beat him up, right?" Gil said.

"Not exactly," Peter said, "she ran inside to call campus police and-"

"Then you whooped him like he stole something, no need to be modest, man," Gil said, patting him on the back. "She's _really_ hot; what's her name?"

"Vivian, my lab partner," Peter said quickly, feeling cornered at the following onslaught of questions, many of them involving the word "boyfriend." Peter had to cut in. "I met her yesterday, guys! I know little more about her than you do!"

"Well then, you need to get in there!" Gil said, playfully shoving him. "Speaking of girls, there's a party tonight at Alpha Delta, you coming? Bonnie told me to invite you, you know, the cheerleader chick? She seemed really intent on you going."

"I'm not really the partying guy," Peter admitted. "The last time I went to a party, I got heat stroke and passed out. Don't tell anyone else that."

The blonds burst out laughing. "Dude, you're great," Gil said. "You don't go to parties wearing that! It gets tense and dense in there, man! Throw on 'people clothes' and join us, bro!"

"Actually I can't tonight," Peter said, feeling his overwhelming sixth sense kick in. "I kinda have to go now."

Gil looked at his posse with a sly grin. "I bet it's Vivian."

"It's actually my bladder," Peter said, making one of Gil's friends snort. "I'll head out with you next week, I promise."

"I'll take you up on that," Gil said, watching Peter leave the room. Peter ran into the nearest shower stall and changed into his costume, shoving his stuff into a bathroom locker and whipping open the door. He ran to the window and opened it, swinging into the city night before anyone could see. He followed his gut into the beautiful Middleton skyline on his own lines, still bustling and alive with civilians and criminals as his senses suggested. He found himself in the small parking lot of a restaurant, hearing the struggling behind a dumpster. Spider-Man leaped onto the brick wall behind the dumpster and his eyes narrowed, seeing a familiar blonde bombshell throwing all of her might at the stalker who followed her earlier. Her phone and pepper spray were scattered on the ground. He shot in between them and sent a punch into the assaulter's gut that doubled him over.

"No, no, no!" the criminal wheezed.

"Spider-Man!" Vivian exclaimed, watching the masked vigilante break the creeper's nose.

Spider-Man raised the man to his feet and broke his cheekbone with an elbow strike. He noticed that Vivian had done some damage herself and was a bit impressed. Peter would have to investigate. "Didn't your mother teach you never to hit women, Derek Alabaster Smith? What's she going to say when I tell her?"

"I thought you were in New York," the creeper croaked.

"Miss," Spider-Man said, turning toward Vivian while firing several web beams at the thug. "Is this New York? Are these web beams? Am I-" He gasped. "SPIDER-MAN?!"

"Why are you here?" the criminal asked through grit teeth, watching Spider-Man use Vivian's cellphone to call the cops. He searched the man as well, finding several small white bags of cocaine and a handgun. He placed them on the creep's chest.

"Because people like you ask stupid questions," Spider-Man said, punching the man's nose again to knock him out. "Boop!" He stood up and turned to Vivian. "I assume this is yours?"

Vivian's wide, astonished grin turned into bawling grief. She hugged the hero tightly, making Peter's throat choke up. When that happens, it really made him think about his impact on people. It reminded him of why he started doing this in the first place. "Thank you so much, I can never thank you enough- this happens to me all the time, and I feel like I can't go outside because I get harassed or worse- I don't know what would have happened if-"

"It will be alright," Spider-Man said softly, rubbing the back of her head while she cried it out. He went through the list of things that made children and adults happy. "Just tell me what happened."

"I was going to Golden Panda and then this guy who followed my friend and I to the dorms jumps me," Vivian said, her crying turning into quiet sniffles. "Sorry, I just got tired of getting angry over it."

"Don't apologize," Spider-Man said sternly. "If you want, I'll go with you to Golden Panda."

Vivian's sniffles disappeared. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Spider-Man said. "Eating is part of the superhero comforting process," he said in a mock macho voice, making a heroic stance.

Vivian couldn't help but smile a little and she took her phone from his hand. "Follow me, I know where it is."

"Do you want to walk there or webline there?" the vigilante asked.

Vivian gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Go, go, go, go, ahhhh!" she exclaimed. Spider-Man whipped them into the skyline within seconds, holding her around the waist with one arm and zipping across five blocks. They found the fast food restaurant with the large, golden panda statue outside of it and he set her down, ignoring all the strange stares from inside and outside the building.

Peter's senses became sharper once again and he turned toward the street. _My Spidey Senses are tingling…_

"Thank you so much," Vivian said once again, still out of breath from the ride. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay-"

"Don't worry about it," Peter said, giving her a thumb up. "I have to go, but take this." He reached into a pocket of his costume and pulled out a metallic black widow with a glass marking on its back. "Whenever you need me, squeeze this little guy, but only for emergencies, okay?"

"Only for emergencies, right," Vivian said, shakily taking the gift. "What counts as an emergency to you?"

"It depends on how hard I have to hit something," Spider-Man said, taking off again to stop another crime and hopefully make it back to the dining hall in time for dinner. He had a feeling he would be seeing her again, very soon.

 **Will Peter be able to keep his secret? Will Ron find his confidence? What is the GJN hiding from Kim? Where will Shego wake up? Find out next time on SpiderBall Z!**


	9. Chapter 9

**I OWN NOTHING**

 _Peter_

Twenty days had passed and things had gotten busier. From then to now, he was busier than any other college student on campus by his estimate, maybe equal to Kim Possible. He started responding to more crime calls, clashed with Kim a bunch of times, found the rest of Drakken's toys running around, saved Vivian a million times, and made steady progress in the lab and making friends. His pleas to Doctor Possible to work in an unsupervised lab had been denied so far, so he'd have to find a way around them to fix his webbing. Thankfully, the webbing hadn't been acting up lately, or so he thought. Gil was still an issue on a personal and privacy level; that's why at seven in the morning, Peter was already swinging around in the city. He had felt his Spidey Senses tingling once he entered the city, but when he got back to the dorm he'd have a talk with Gil. He yawned as he sailed through the blue morning over the skyline and zipped downward, silently sailing through a broken window of a dark jewelry store without an alarm. He dived behind a counter with gold and silver watches under glass and quietly climbed up to the ceiling. He looked down, seeing a scrawny, short man filling a black duffel bag with as many jewels he could grab with a tall, muscular partner. He stopped on one item, a hand-sized golden monkey head with ruby eyes and sapphire teeth. What a strange piece to have, Peter thought. It must have been the prime objective. They were generally nondescript from the back, late 30's or early 40's, male, bad grammar, and abnormally large ears on the smaller man. "Wait, what?" Spider-Man said to himself, looking closer at the men. What he mistook for standard black masks and jumpsuits was hair and they wore no shoes, with feet looking similar enough to their hands. The smaller one had lighter skin while the other one had grayish palms. "A bank robbing chimpanzee and ape, yeah? I'm not sure which one I should call: a policeman, or a zookeeper!" he said, firing a webline at the scrawnier one and plastering him to the ground faster than his partner could react.

"Ambush!" the smaller man said with his face stuck to the floor. His partner dropped the bag and beat his chest with his fists, looking around the small store. "Up!" he shouted.

The ape looked upward and Peter dropped his heel on the animal's head, dazing him. Peter darted between his legs and yanked a web attached to the ape's fast, dropping him fast. The animal roared and rolled to its feet, throwing its fists at the agile spider. Peter swept the ape off its feet with a kick and raised it above his head. "I wonder if this is considered animal cruelty," Peter said, slamming the thrashing ape to the floor. "Eh, PETA won't really care what the talking apes do." The chimpanzee howled and tore through the webbing,charging at Peter while screeching at a volume that drove Peter's hearing crazy. Spider-Man blocked a volley of powerful jabs to the face and flipped over the ape, letting the chimp trip over his partner. The chimp caught Peter's ankle and slammed the back of his head into the floor before jumping up and down on his chest, clawing and biting at his face. "Alright," Peter said, dodging a bite and rocketing upward with an uppercut. "You guys are going bananas!" he said, ducking a punch and a kick from the ape then throwing all his weight into a gut kick that blew the ape onto the sleepy sidewalk. Peter dragged the chimp out on a web beam and tied him to a light pole on the corner of the street. He turned back to the charging ape and flipped over him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him into the air with amazing strength. Spider-Man slammed the ape into the ground again, this time knocking it out. "Well, no more monkeys jumping on the bed," he said, walking inside the shop and leaning under the counter to press the alarm button. As soon as the ringing started, his sudden urge to jump activate on its own. He vaulted over the counter and over a row of chimps prepared to take him down.

The chimps screeched and charged on their knuckles, flinging themselves at the vigilante. Peter noticed that it wasn't wild either; he was dodging punches and kicks like any other fighter. These animals were being trained to do crime. He let a little more of his brute strength show as he delivered three powerful kicks to the chimps, dropping them instantly.

"No more monkeying around, yeah?" Peter said, opening the duffel bag and dumping the jewels behind the counter. He picked up the monkey statue and turned toward the windows. "Things are going completely ape," he said nervously, seeing at least twenty chimps and two apes with a few monkeys standing silently outside the window. He started waving the statue around in the air, finding all their heads following the object in unison. "There it is," he said, aiming for the doors and launching himself out of the store and into the primate fray. With the idol in one hand and his open hand balled up, he fought with terrifying speed and precise strikes; he knew he was dropping more than enough of them but they just kept coming. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling he needed to call Nick about this. He hated that feeling. He let out a battle cry and broke from the growing pile of unconscious primates with a web-guided uppercut taking him to the top of the three story office building next to the small jewelry store, seeing the police cars in the distance. He took out his phone and hit the small S.H.I.E.L.D icon in the center of the screen, dialing Nick instantly and tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear as he crawled up the side of a building for the news helicopter honing in. Peter continued his climb and he glanced at the helicopter, watching Kim and Ron angrily make their way toward the scene of battle. "Pick up, pick up, pick-"

"I thought you weren't talking to us," Nick said with a slight mocking tone.

"I thought you'd find a bunch of talking primates searching for a golden monkey statue interesting, you know, just to talk about," Peter said sarcastically. "I might need an artifact drop from you guys soon if I can't escape these guys, which is unlikely but I'm just feeling kinda lonely; oh and Kim Possible is-"

"Stop right there!" Kim shouted, rolling onto the rooftop across from Peter's from a twenty foot fall. She and Ron slid through the chimp hoardes appearing from nowhere like it was nothing,

"Right here, so I should probably go," Peter said, waving to Kim before diving back into the madness as monkey met cop. "Is it worth Strange running some tests on it?"

"When we send our operatives, you can take it with them to our support drop location in Denver," Nick said, "they'll be there in one week, during homecoming weekend, yes? October fourth? Just hold onto it for now. The GJN is closing in on your location so I wouldn't stay there for long."

"Just hold onto it? Do you know how many times Gil has gone through the twenty bags of SunChips in my desk already?" Peter asked, pulling police from the melee and placing them safely onto the rooftops. Kim and Ron were doing the same thing, except it was Ron doing most of the fighting this time and Kim moving the police from harm. He noticed that Ron was doing exceptionally well against the chimps and started bouncing on their heads, throwing himself at Spider-Man and landing a hard palm strike in Peter's chest. Peter flipped back, returning with a chin kick as he stuffed the idol in one pocket. "I can't just leave it in the bathroom locker!"

"Keep it on your person until the drop," Fury ordered. "You are dismissed."

Peter blocked several hard strikes with his knees and kicked Ron in the face. "Hey, Ron," Peter said, putting his phone away. Kim hopped onto the rooftop and Peter looked past them, seeing all of the primates down for the count. "Nice one, Kim. Can we skip the fighting for today? I have a dentist's appointment at 12 and a mandatory conference meeting at 10."

"What are the chances of us just letting you go?" Kim said bluntly.

"You have something that isn't yours," Ron said angrily, staring at the head of the idol poking out of Spider-Man's pocket. "Either give it to me or I'll go ape."

"I already made that joke," Peter said, folding his arms. "At least make it original."

Kim and Ron shot their grappling hooks at him and he ducked, grabbing the hooks and yanking them toward him. He rolled in between them and shot a webline to the building across the street. Peter gasped as a grappling hook grabbed his ankle and smashed him face first into the building. Peter rolled on his back and kicked the pursuing Kim in the chin before firing another webline toward a building.

"That's my purse!" Peter said, hopping to his feet and kicking Ron's guard hard enough to break it. He followed with a punch that was dodged and he took a hit to the stomach. Peter crawled onto Ron's shoulders. "I don't know you!"

"Hey!" Ron exclaimed, hitting at the vigilante choking him with his thighs.

Peter vaulted over Kim from Ron's shoulder and zipped away on a webline. He felt the idol move and he patted his thigh, receiving a painful bite. "Ow!" he exclaimed, looking down at the naked mole rat in his pocket. Peter laughed. "That was a good one," he said, whipping around and firing a web beam at Ron's hands, yanking the artifact away from him. He picked up Rufus with one hand. "Sorry, Rufus," he said, whipping the mole rat at his owner and swinging away. He put the idol back in his pocket and called Nick again. "Alright, I have it. Why is it significant?"

"It's a Jade Idol, according to Doctor Strange," Nick said, "we had a problem in the nineties with a nosy archaeologist trying to covet the abilities they granted from us. It was a small excavation in the Wakandan territories, so Black Panther might want it back."

"But why monkeys?"

"We don't know," Nick said, "and after that the tribe that capitalized on the idols went to war with the Wakandans, we didn't care. Hold onto it until we get there. Don't worry, it's only nine days away and we won't interrupt any midterms."

"So how are you guys dropping in?" Peter said.

"We'll be making some special appearances," Nick said. "I'd recommend hurrying to class; you're still being followed."

"Yeah, I know," Peter said. He glanced back, watching Kim and Ron run from rooftop to rooftop as fast as they could. "I'm going to vanish soon. Bye." Peter hung up and darted over the crowd of students waiting at the stop sign to cross into the urban camp. He had fifteen minutes to get to his Thursday chemistry lab section, and tardiness meant low grades. He wasn't going to repeat high school again by barely making A's. He turned into a red and blue flash as he darted toward his residential complex. He climbed up the wall and vaulted into his room; Gil kept the windows open at night. He was useful sometimes, and he had already left for his classes. He closed the blinds and started to change into his civilian clothes for the day and as he grabbed his mask, he hesitated. He turned toward the window and his eyes narrowed. The blinds had been rustled. He pulled out several small, black spider trackers from the back of his desk under a bag of SunChips and started placing them around the room. On the back of each tracker was a small but high definition camera. Peter closed the window and webbed the blinds shut before taking off his mask, grabbing his backpack, and heading out the door. He picked up his phone again. "Nick, I was followed," he said in a hushed voice. "I don't know how it evaded my senses, but my room won't be the safest place for a while." He felt his pants pocket and grinned as the idol was safely in his khakis, tucked under his "Stark Industries" t-shirt and red jacket. "I'll be watching my roommate and everyone in the complex closely and will notify you when I find out who ghosted me."

"It wasn't any GJN whelps, I know that for sure," Nick said. "Could it have been one of the monkeys?"

"Maybe," Peter said, reaching the urban campus with eight minutes to go eight blocks. "Whoever's training them isn't a novice, but I don't think it's anything I can't handle."

"Fair enough," Nick said, "keep me updated." Nick hung up on Peter and Spider-Man spent the next few hours looking over his shoulder. Later that afternoon, the news caught up with him, and with helpful intervention by the media bias he was branded as a thief. Back to square one, he guessed. He experienced the same flack in New York before the Avengers picked him up, but the West was actively against his kind, so any assembling might make things harder. Peter returned from his dull math class to the dining hall by the dorm complexes. He stood in the various lunch lines, gathering a massive amount of food due to his altered metabolism, and was presented with an almost traumatic conundrum dating back to his middle school days: where to sit. He started walking around the public cafeteria, seeing a mix of students from all school demographics, even a bunch of tired graduate students intently working on papers in the modernist building. He swam through the groups of students like a fish without a school with his tray of entrees, moving past the deli and soup lines and around the corner to the soda machines. He gasped and hopped back as Dmitry tripped forward with a bowl of yogurt and a glass of milk. Peter tossed his food into the air and caught Dmitry and his things before spinning around, catching his own food perfectly. He cursed under his breath- he wasn't supposed to do that in front of other people.

"You blundering oaf!" Dmitry barked, bringing some attention from the people in the booths and long tables past the soda machine. "I nearly fell and it was your _stupid_ fault! Don't those glasses work? I could slap them off your face for doing that!"

Peter felt like he should have let him drop. "I apologize."

"First you get in my way in engineering class with your _asinine_ views on nature, you get in my way in chemistry lab this morning, and even during my solemn moments without you, here you are!" he snapped, bringing even more onlookers.

"I caught you and your food," Peter said, "I apologize for the other times I've gotten in your way, and we're not sitting together, so," Peter put all his food on one hand and extended the open one. "Are we cool?" Peter leaned back, dodging a quick slap.

"No, we are not cool," Dmitry growled, "and I'll make sure people like you never get into my way again!" He brushed past Peter and nearly fell again as the New Yorker was as solid as a rock.

Peter felt tens of eyes staring at him; he was bigger than Dmitry and they probably already saw Peter as the perpetrator. He blushed and continued to find a table. He headed into the back area with round tables big enough for eight people and televisions broadcasting the news on a glass wall and felt the same fish out of water feeling. "Hey, Peter!" a familiar voice said from the center of the room. He turned toward the voice and it was Bonnie in a green and gold cheerleading outfit with other cheerleaders and mountainous football players sitting at the table with one extra seat. There was no way he would be able to squeeze into that seat in between the two green and gold varsity jackets, but he couldn't just ignore them. He grinned and walked over to the table, immediately feeling the judgement from the cheerleaders washing over him like a plague. After four years of rejection, he could tell when someone thought he was nowhere near their league, and Peter Parker was nowhere near the four cheerleaders' league, not that he cared.

"What's up, Bonnie?" Peter said.

"This is the guy you've been telling us about?" one cheerleader with long, straight black hair asked the brunette with a scoff.

"Your study buddy looks like he does nothing but study," one jock with a brown buzzcut scoffed. Peter and Bonnie had agreed to study chemistry and math with each other, mainly on Bonnie's persistence. Peter's study spots were quite eccentric, such as rooftops, ceilings, walls, and in web hammocks in between trees.

"Is that why he's going to get better grades?" another cheerleader with wavy blonde hair said. "Studying more isn't anything to laugh at, even if he could be hitting the gym a bit more."

"We all go to M.I.S.T," a slimmer player said arrogantly, "everyone here can get good grades, so your point is?"

Peter laughed, silencing the sports players. "I get it, the roast is real- now can I sit here, or are you just going to sit there staring at me until I disappear?" No words could offend him now after dealing with a guy like Flash Thompson.

"Yeah, that's why I called you over here?" Bonnie said, rolling her eyes. "Guys, scoot over."

The slim player and the buzzcut player looked at each other with shifty eyes and smug grins. "Alright guys, give him a break," the third football player, a mountain of muscle with a deep voice and long, blonde hair said, moving over on his seat. "Sit down, man."

Peter saw the glare the buzzcut guy gave him and sat down anyway, turning to the blonde player. He extended his hand. "Peter Parker."

The blonde player had a hard, ridgy face with a thick jawline, blue eyes, and a pointed nose. "Brick Flagg," he said smoothly, not returning the handshake. "You play football?" he asked.

"No," Peter said, expecting the chuckle from most of the table that followed. He could have played sports if he wanted to, but the sudden change from clumsy brainiac to Superman would make people a little suspicious. Brick smirked.

"Any sport other than E-Sports?" Brick continued, getting a bit more laughter. Bonnie looked around the table and back at Peter, watching him shrug it off, so she joined in on the laughter.

"He's read about sports, maybe someday, he will have the knowledge to throw the ball," Bonnie said with a chuckle, watching Peter's grin shrink into something a little more sly. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt like he might be hiding something.

"I played a little baseball back in New York," Peter said, folding his arms. "I guess you guys got lucky; without football, you would have had to compete with me."

The laughing stopped and Brick flashed a frown. "And what is that supposed to mean?" Brick watched Peter slurp up some pasta.

"Oh, you'll figure it out," Peter said. The next fifteen minutes or so was simply them versus Peter, with every topic ending in comedy where he's the punchline and Peter rising like the phoenix with the perfect comeback. Brick was the only one getting irritated visibly, but he tried to play it off by forcing himself to laugh at himself. Bonnie stared at Peter quizzically as he was taking their constant teasing in stride; most people would have left by now. Peter must have dealt with this a lot. She then over his shoulder in envy, seeing a flawlessly beautiful tan and blonde student with a tall model's curvy figure and bright blue eyes wearing a red long jacket and a blue skirt with black heels. She walked quickly past the table and Brick's teammates surely noticed. Peter's face was down toward his food, chomping away at it like a demon, so he missed what they saw.

"Wow," Brick said. "She's _hot!_ "

"I mean, she's okay," one of the cheerleaders said.

"I would like to get to know her so well," the buzzcut player said with a wolfish smile.

"Hey guys," the slim player said quietly, leaning forward on the table with a small sheet of paper. "Bet I could pick up that chick over there?"

"Doubt it," Brick said. He looked at his teammates and at the cheerleaders and smirked. "Hey, Peter; you know what? I think you could take her."

Peter looked to the corner of the room and his grin vanished. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah," Brick said, snickering with his table. "She's a 11 outta 10."

"Go up to her and say, 'are you Russia? Because I'll be Putin it in you,'" the slim player said, stifling some of the laughter from Bonnie's friends. "Don't come back either; it'll make it obvious."

Bonnie opened her mouth to object but Peter had already stood up with his food. "Peter, they're just-"

"Go on, big man," Brick said, pushing Peter away from the table.

"I guess I'll see you later, then," Peter said calmly, moving away from the table. Bonnie looked at the blonde again and grimaced. Peter heard the guys laughing as he walked across the room. Didn't people like that stay in their small town, big fish, little pond? Not if the fish has a football scholarship. He approached the blonde sitting alone at the table for eight and sat down across from the girl buried in a scientific journal he still had yet to read. He should probably get on that. "Hey, Vivian."

"Oh!" the brainiac exclaimed, looking up at her lab partner. "You startled me."

Peter chuckled. "Sorry about that. May I sit here?"

"Of course," she said, "I'm just reading the placed his plates down, startling the girl buried in the scientific article he should probably have been reading. Her other hand held a slice of pizza. "Oh! Hey, Peter. I didn't see you there."

"Sorry for startling you," Peter said, "are you busy?"

"I'm just going over the background readings for tonight's procedures, something you should be doing too," she scolded lightly, "but you can sit here."

"I've been pretty busy lately, sorry," Peter said, sitting down and putting his backpack on the floor.

"That's no excuse," Vivian said, "you shouldn't be overwhelming yourself as a freshman."

"There have been some personal things going on lately that have been taking my time," Peter said, pulling the article from his backpack and putting it next to his food. They read in silence for the rest of the meal, commenting occasionally on the results' interpretation and to share notes.

"Where are you headed after this?" Vivian asked. "I have something I want to show you. I think you'll really like it."

"I have political science at two," Peter said, "Ki La Shing Center."

"The gym is just a few minutes past it from here," Vivian said, "I'll go with you. You have to see this."

Peter collected his belongings and felt inside his pockets, feeling the Jade Idol. He followed Vivian out and glanced at the table, seeing Brick's face red with anger. Peter and Vivian walked part of the way with Vivian deciding whether or not she should tell him. "If it's a secret, then you shouldn't tell it."

"I know, but…" a wide and excited grin spread across her face. "Ugh! I have to tell you!"

"Are you sure?" Peter asked.

"I don't know," Vivian said, reaching into a pocket of her jacket and pulling out the calling beacon Spider-Man gave her. Peter nearly turned white and looked around, looking for Kim, Ron, or anyone dressed in a black suit with glasses.

"What's that?" Peter said.

"I have a friend that I can call at a drop of a hat," Vivian said giddily. "He's tall, muscular, clever, suave, heroic, and wears spandex. I think you know who I'm talking about."

Peter laughed, trying to hide his nervousness. Next time 'he' met with her, which he figured it would be very soon, he'd have to clarify the secrecy between him and her.

"Peter!" Bonnie said, sliding in between them and shouldering Vivian aside. "I have a few questions from today's chemistry lecture; do you think you can help me out? Also, I thought I'd give you a ticket to the party tonight and after next week's homecoming game at Delta Gamma. Don't worry about research or anything; they start at eleven."

"Wow, thanks!" Peter took the tickets shoved in his face and pocketed it. Even though he wasn't a party guy, he felt like saying no to someone crushing his arm with her grip was a bad idea.

"It's going to be so fun," Bonnie said, "but before play, there's work. I just need help on chapter five's homework." She took Peter's hand and dragged him forward, looking back at Vivian with a glare.

Vivian stopped and looked at the brunette innocently. "What's her problem?" She shrugged it off and looked down at the mechanical spider in her hand, happily going about her day. She felt bad though; she would have to tell Spider-Man about Peter.

* * *

 _Kim_

The redhead heroine in her cheerleading outfit sat in her political science course next to her friend Monique, a tall, slender African American girl with wavy black hair and brown eyes, and couldn't pay attention very well. This had been her 17th time in a row she and Ron, along with several GJN agents with jets and helicopters, had missed the vigilante sharing their limelight, and Betty wasn't too happy about it. She had mentioned two surprises in store for her today, and Kim wasn't very excited. Kim still needed to know the truth, as soon as Spider-Man suddenly claimed Middleton, Betty became a nightmare. Every night, every morning, either she was blowing up her phone or sending agents waking she and Bonnie up in the middle of the night. She still had yet to see Spider-Man's danger other than being a general pain in her butt and a major thunder stealer, but the GJN had always been right before in their motives. This time made her more than a little suspicious, and she was determined to find out why. She looked three rows down to the front of the class, seeing Peter leaned forward and furiously scribbling down everything that was on the slides. "Alright, everyone, class is dismissed," the petite and bubbly professor said, "remember for our next meeting I need you all to prepare arguments on identity privacy."

The professor got a mumbled response and the class filed out. "Today dragged on," Monique said, "but this hour especially. I'm heading over to Burger Boy for lunch right before lacrosse; do you wanna go?"

This was just what she needed for the week she had been going through. "Yes I would," she said with a smile. "But I have cheerleading practice today and-"

Her Kimmunicator beeped and Kim's expression turned grave. "Sorry, Monique, I have to take this one."

"Don't worry," Monique said. "Go out and save something."

Kim picked up the kimmunicator and pressed the "talk" button. "What's the sitch, Miss Director?"

"Meet me at an agent drop point in ninety minutes," Betty said sternly. "It seems you're incapable of claiming our target yourself this time, and still haven't grasped the seriousness of this situation, so I need to remedy those with you in person."

"Wait, what-"

"Dismissed," Betty said, ending the transmission.

Kim scowled. She remembered how sluggish the director was; during their sparring matches Kim always came out on top, she would edge forward against Betty in the physical fitness exams, if she couldn't catch Spider-Man then there was no way on earth Betty could.

"What's wrong?" Monique asked.

"Ever since Spider-Man came into town," Kim said, "my boss has been treating me like a dog, and I don't like it; next time we have a meeting, I will demand clarification and if she wants to keep me in her employ then she better explain. I have to go."

"See you," Monique said, watching her friend race across campus to the football fields. Kim ran from endzone to endzone faster than the training runningbacks and stopped in front of the onlooking cheerleaders and Ron. Her best friend wore a clunky, green and gold outfit of a Spartan with a foam short sword and throwing spear. Bonnie stood in the center of the cheerleaders with a scowl.

"It's about time you showed up," she said, "are you going to take us through our drills already or what?"

"No, I was just going to go around playing 'duck duck goose,'" Kim said. "What do you think I was going to do? Let's get into formation."

"Let's hope you can catch your target this time," Bonnie spat. Kim balled up her fists, but it wasn't worth it.

"And what about me?" Ron asked.

"Practice your fake sword fighting," Kim said, standing in front of the three squares of cheerleaders, "then once we form the tri-towers, flip, cartwheel, any cool gymnastic, in front of us. We have our homecoming game next week and a game on Saturday, so we can't afford to mess up."

"Got it, Kim," Ron said, performing a series of backflips and handstands most of the cheerleaders were envious of. Little did they know, Ron had four years of ninjitsu training under his belt.

"Alright, girls," Kim said, tossing pom poms to the cheerleaders. "Entry formation, let's go."

They practiced hard and repetitiously, leaving everyone sore but ready for this weekend's game. Kim felt a heavy hand on her shoulder as she looked at the line of sweaty, athletic cheerleaders taking collecting their belongings after practice and dispersing. "Oh, Coach Mallory, I didn't see you today so I just went with what we'd do for tonight's-"

"Possible," Betty's voice said. Kim turned around, seeing the muscular and curvy middle-aged woman with fair skin and brown hair in a bob and a black eyepatch over her right eye wearing a blue and black jumpsuit. "There are a few things we have to go over."

Kim's eyes widened and when she blinked again, she was in a cold, grey hallway with metal walls and a grate floor. She hated teleportation. The metal ceiling was brightly lit by round lamps and every step Betty made started to ring throughout the narrow passageways. "Betty, are you finally going to tell me what your deal is, why you're so mad at me, and why you've become obsessed over Spider-Man? I can't complete your task if I still only have half an idea of what I'm doing!"

"Come," Betty ordered, taking Kim onto a giant main deck. Walls were lined with computers and surveillance terminals and the men and women working on them diligently, and the lines of thick windows along the tops and bottoms of the walls revealed they were thousands of feet in the air. On the ceiling above the hanging lamps was a large symbol in black and green of six snake-like creatures curling outward with an eagle's head at the tail of each in the center surrounded by a green circle. Below them was the organization's acronym in big white letters on the ground. Kim followed her into another set of narrow, metal hallways to a small, dark room with a projector screen and two chairs."Sit."

"I'd rather stand," Kim said, leaning against the wall.

Betty scowled. "Very well."

Kim was nearly blinded as the projection started on the wall. Footage of New York City with a timestamp of "1962" in the corner started rolling. "What is this?"

"Attack on the Empire State Building," Betty said, "a team of mutants called the Hellfire Club tries to assassinate JFK during his cross country campaign. Magneto took them down himself, but still wanted him dead, leading to a fight against the X-Men that killed scores."

Kim watched the side of the famous landmark explode as a man wearing a red and purple outfit floating into the sky bent the metal into a twisted, ugly shape before whipping it at a group of running civilians. A rugged man with spiky black hair and blades from his knuckles leapt from the hole in the building toward the metal-bending man, but she stopped the clip. The next tape showed the same man in red and purple in the White House office, tearing the place to shreds with the powers of magnetism.

"1973, the X-Men break Magneto out of prison and Magneto tries to kill Nixon; this shows that mutants will help each other no matter what they've done," Betty said.

Kim watched a later clip of Cairo, dated 1985, watching a bald man in a wheelchair, the black-haired man with long claws, a dark-skinned young girl with flowing white hair, and a man and woman with blue skin, the man with blue hair and the woman with short orange hair, charging toward a tall, blue-skinned man wearing extravagant robes among a destroyed Egyptian village and scores of dead bodies. She was taken back a bit by the gore.

"1985, a mutant calling himself Apocalypse decides he's going to take over the planet and the few mutants willing to stop him completely ignored the dying people around them, showing that they only care about themselves," Betty said, "mankind is just in the way."

Kim also noticed that there were no human agents or any GJN helping them out, but before she could question it, Betty had already changed the screen to a 1991 timestamp showing two opposing small armies of mutants, one led by a man in a black trenchcoat with an eyepatch over one eye and the other led by a man wearing a grey metal suit with a green cowl.

"The humans that do help them are shoved to the front lines of the battle, and the mutants don't care whether they live or die." Betty changed it to a more recent timestamp, this one in 2003, showed footage of the spiky-haired and clawed mutant tearing GJN agents in a warehouse to shreds. "And when the mutants turn on man, it is merciless whether it is direct brutality," she changed the video to an even more recent clip of New York in 2012; the strange otherworldly invasion that the Avengers supposedly had stopped. Everyone in the southwest was banned from seeing the footage, and this was the first time she saw a glimpse. A giant, green wall of muscle and rage tore through pale aliens and leaped through a building under the madness caused by a giant blue hole in the sky spewing gold and black aliens and spacecraft. The building the green man had crashed through collapsed and the screams Kim heard from the clip shook her to the core. "Or indirectly. They don't care about human lives," Betty said, changing to a 2014 clip of Spider-Man flipping over a flying saucer that impaled a lanky man in a green suit with a demonic mask on. Blood squirted from the man and he slumped onto the device, lying still. She started flipping through more clips, specifically choosing clips showing Spider-Man fighting a villain indirectly hurting civilians because of the fight, and she knew that, but the danger was there. She didn't feel like Betty was telling her everything still, but she listened. "They take human lives with no remorse, they only care when their lives are involved, and when someone questions it?" She turned to the last clip with a timestamp of 2015, showing Spider-Man among a melee of mutants fighting human-looking people. "They turn on the humans who helped them like dogs. They are more powerful than we could ever imagine, and the death tolls of what happened in Slokovia and New York shows us that they're too harmful when…" She paused like this when she tried to find a nicer word than what she meant. "Regulated."

"I doubt every mutant is like how you're portraying them," Kim said, "would we be done for already if-"

"That kind of thinking is exactly why we need to bring Spider-Man in and make him answer for what he's done," Betty said quickly, folding her arms. "Do you want to wait for Spider-Man to bite you before you find out if he's a friendly spider or not?"

"That's a loaded question," Kim said with a grimace. "What aren't you telling me, Miss Director? You make them sound like if they were such a threat, S.H.I.E.L.D would have taken over already."

Betty smirked. "That's why we're not going to wait until they do."

"But-"

"Tell me, Kim," Betty said, "when have mutants helped you out? Used their powers for good? Shego? Monkey Fist?"

"We've talked about this," Kim said.

"Then you know I'm right," Betty said.

"What happens when he hurts you? Ron?" Betty said, keeping her smug grin. "What will you say next time you try to reason with him and he throws a fist at you? It seems as though you need a look at the carnage of mutants firsthand, along with the only thing they're good for."

"I'm not going to hurt the innocent indiscriminately," Kim said sternly.

"Then the guilty are going to indiscriminately hurt us and all of mankind, and you know how the GJN deals with rogue agents," Betty said, "and their families."

"I'm freelance," Kim said, her eyes now wide with fear. "I'm freelance, you can't do anything to my family, I won't let you."

"Not anymore," Betty said, "I won't have you lose your life over some petty ideals; I care about you too much. Calm down. Your family is safe. All I mean is that they would lose their GJN status. No one's getting hurt on my watch, alright? When have I lied to you before?" She flipped on the lights, nearly blinding Kim again. Her never lying to her before was the reason she felt so suspicious. It wasn't like Betty to dodge questions. "You will learn that we are right in our mission. Follow me."

Kim followed Betty down the hallway and down several flights of stairs to a small observation deck over a dimly lit row of cages on a wide, concrete floor. "In these four cages, we have two mutants and two men. When I release them, watch their interactions. We confiscated the mutants from Weapon X. The men are war criminals who have murdered thousands and chose this way to go out."

"Go out?" Kim folded her arms and watched what she considered to be a pointless exercise. She pressed the shiny red button on the panel of the observation deck and they looked out the viewing window, seeing four humans step out from their cages. The ones labeled "human" and "mutant" were separated by infected tattoos across their backs. The two men looked haggard and starved, tall, thin, and bony, with long and unruly hair. They stepped toward the young mutant twins and extended their hand. What was next truly horrified the young vigilante; one of the twins' skin shot out several blades, impaling the man and dropping him in a pool of his own blood. The other man screamed and jumped on the other mutant twin, beating the young adolescent to a bloody pulp. The man started screaming too and the child he had been beating set himself on fire as the GJN agents rushed onto the scene. "You killed him!" she exclaimed. "He's dead; why would you-"

"Even the children can't see past their own evil," Betty said, "they're a scourge that needs to be regulated. It's them or us; as you could see from the example, they stick to their own and attack anyone different. How many more lives need to be lost?"

Kim figured at this point, she wasn't going to listen to reason, but seeing the man lying on the ground, twitching and writhing as he bled out, would never, ever leave her mind. Even as they walked away, the images flashed every time she blinked. "How do you plan on taking Spider-Man in? If it's anything like this, count me out. He might be a thief but he's done even more than me over the past month."

"It's a trust tactic, don't buy it," Betty took her back into the hallways, up several flights of stairs and toward a conference room. "I plan on exploiting the one thing mutants are good for."

"Which is?" Kim asked.

"Fighting other mutants," Betty laughed, opening the door. Five men sat at the end of a long wooden table at the end of the hall, one in a red and black suit, another with a metal arm, the third with a leopard-fur coat, the fourth with blonde hair and metal skin, and the fifth one with a blue and white target themed jumpsuit. "Kim, meet our very own squad of mutant mercenaries who will deliver Spider-Man into our hands. They all have experience fighting S.H.I.E.L.D's puppets, but most importantly, Spider-Man. Nick Fury is too concerned about staying a secret to come over here to back him up, so all you'll have to focus on is catching that red and blue bug. Boys, introduce yourselves."

The five mercenaries looked down the table at Kim, all nodding or waving. The man in the red and black suit gasped. He had two swords on his back and had several packs on his sides for the ammo to his guns strapped to his outer thighs. "You're Kim Possible!" he exclaimed. "I'd watch you on Disney Channel all the time as an adult!"

Kim stared at the man with a confused look. "Disney Channel?"

"Hi," the man in the red suit said, "I'm Deadpool, your friendly neighborhood fourth wall breaker and chimichanga maker. Your first three seasons were great, but I felt like the ending to season four was kinda forced."

"Fourth wall? Seasons?" Kim said. "What are you talking about?"

"Excuse him, he get excited around new people," the leopard coat wearing man said in a thick, Russian accent. Kim could tell this guy was huge simply by the fact that his arm was as thick as her thighs and his chest was as wide as the short ends of the table. He had slick, black hair and a thick but neat mustache. "I'm Kraven ze Hunter, I fight ze Spidejr-Man many time." He pointed to the quiet, discontent-faced man with long, brown hair, brown eyes and metal arm. "Zat is ze Vinter Soldier, Soviet brainvash man ve 'acquired' from SHIELD vhen they no look our vay," he said, moving to the blonde metal man. "Ze Omega Red," he said, finally pointing to the target man. "Ze Bullseye. Stay vith us and ve vill get your Spidehr-Man."

"Their payment comes next week," Betty said, "so in the meantime, you and Ron will become friends with them to make your survival during this mission that much more important. We _will_ complete our objective, understood?"

Kim swallowed nervously as she noticed just how many weapons they all had. She wondered how Betty was able to hire these guys to take Spider-Man in alive; she wasn't going to ask where she even found them, but she knew that with their intervention, the webhead vigilante was coming in dead or alive. She was worried that the man suddenly carrying half the weight of saving Middleton would be at the mercy of a twisted Director, and that the unfairness of this fight combined with the shadiness of these men may leave Spider-Man more dead than alive. With Betty still holding back on her real motivation, she wasn't sure how she felt about aiding these men. She would find out next week.

"Where…" Kim started, "did you find these men?"

"We have three big beneficiaries, one out of New York with an intimate history with our wall crawler, calls himself the Kingpin," Betty said, "we stay out of the east coast, he supplies us with willing and unwilling mercenaries."

"Unwilling?" Kim said.

"It's for the greater good," Betty said, taking her by the shoulders. "Please, Kim. It's for the greater good."

* * *

 _Ron_

The mascot suit was hot, sweaty, but insanely fun to wear all the same. Ron looked up at the black, starry sky as the band played a powerful rendition of the school's fight song at half time. They were playing the Denver Pioneers that night and were crushing them horribly by a 21 point lead. Ron waited by the sidelines for the announcer in the commentator's box to say the names of the mascot for a MIST tradition with their Denver rivals: a best out of three, friendly brawl with the foam weapons and soft costumes at exactly 10:30. MIST had lost the fake fight ten years in a row, supposedly causing the losing streak the team had against Denver, and Ron hoped to break it. The announcer said their names and Ron charged from the sidelines toward the bulkier Daniel Boone styled mascot carrying a pioneer's sword. Ron flipped forward onto the cool grass, feeling the fall winds welcoming him into halftime with the roar of the crowds. Ron leapt forward and spun around, knocking the Pioneer to the ground with a soft heel kick. Ron rolled forward onto one knee and thrust his blade in between the Pioneer's arm and side, taking the first round. He stood up and raised his foam blade as the announcer called the match. Ron turned to face his opponent and theatrically took a stab to the chest, dramatically falling to give the other team hope. Ron stood up for the third round and wasted no time, catching the Pioneer in a lock and tearing the sword from his hand before flipping the Pioneer over his shoulder. Ron finished him gladiator style by looking to the crowd. The student section gave him a thumb down and Ron poked his opponent in the chest with the sword, creating an uproar in the crowd. Rufus chittered approvingly from inside his headpiece. "Yeah, Rufus! He never knew what hit him! Hold on." He flipped backward all the way to the sidelines and turned toward his best friend and the cheerleading captain. "Hey Kim! Did you see that?" He looked at Kim, noticing she wasn't looking very excited.

Ever since she came back from Miss Director's meeting, she hadn't been acting herself. He was brought up for the tour after she went back down, so what was her deal? Did she not see the threat mutants presented? During missions, especially when they encountered Spider-Man, it was like she struck harder but with more caution, as if she wasn't sure to hurt him or not. He had seen the footage of Spider-Man, the "hero," letting the flying saucer impale whoever was trying to end his evil ways. More personally, Betty had reminded him of his family members in New York during the green man's rampage and his grandfather losing his ability to walk due to Magneto in DC. He didn't like the thought of imprisoning Spider-Man, but it had to be done. There was no escape this time. He had met the squad of mutants who were going to finally catch him in seven days, so why was Kim feeling this way?

"Kim?" Ron said, walking over to the captain and tapping her on the shoulder. "Kim!"

Kim blinked and hopped back, startled. "Oh! Yeah, Ron, great job! You finally ended the streak!"

"Now it's your turn," Ron said, pointing to the field and seeing the Pioneer cheerleaders run through their routine as a challenge. "Go kick their butts. Not literally, you know."

Kim laughed. "Thanks, Ron." She turned to the rest of the cheerleaders and beckoned them to follow her onto the field, twirling and flipping all the way.

Ron watched her friend's squad crush the Pioneers until the third quarter began and they rushed to the sidelines for their pep squad routine. Kim and three other cheerleaders threw Bonnie up into the air for a flip when they got the call right before the fourth quarter. Bonnie was good, but she'd always be second best to Kim. The girls finished their set and Ron followed her to the locker rooms. They branched to their respective locker rooms and Ron quickly took off his mascot outfit revealing his mission uniform underneath, ignoring the football players adjusting their helmets and shoulder pads. "Rufus, you ready to kick some butt?"

Rufus pounded his paws together and climbed into Ron's pocket. He ran for the door and bumped into Brick Flagg; it felt like hitting concrete face first. "Watch out, shrimp," Brick said bluntly, brushing past him.

"Watch for yourself," Ron said, hopping to his feet.

"Excuse me?" Brick turned to face Ron and his eyes widened. "Oh, Kim's friend!"

"Yeah," Ron said, seeing that same suck-up grin Brick had used on him in high school. "Kim's friend."

"Is she single yet?" Brick asked.

"No, she's still dating the foreign exchange student from Brasabravia," Ron lied, leaving the locker room. He smiled seeing Kim outside the lockers in her mission outfit. "Let's go before Brick comes out. What are we dealing with?"

"Monkey Fist's agents," Kim said, "Wade reported several of them roaming around the residential areas."

"Why would they come here?" Ron asked.

"Spider-Man ran this way with the idol on Thursday," Kim said, "they're probably just sweeping through but we shouldn't take it any less seriously."

"Leave it to Spider-Man to take us away from this game and next week's, possibly," Ron said. "The Director was right about them being a pain in the butt, right?"

Kim's confident grin faded. "I guess," she said, leading him to the halls on the east side of campus to the west side, finding nothing. She took him to the south side and then the north side, their set of residential halls, to find sixty chimps, apes, and monkeys charging into the halls.

"Wow," Ron said, watching them split into four small squads to find the idol.

"You take the two on the right, I'll take the two on the left," Kim said, darting to the buildings on her left. Ron and Rufus charged toward the primates guarding his building and the one to the right of it with a spinning side kick, beating his way into the first buildings.

"Alright, stop chimping about!" Ron shouted at the fifteen or so primates that trashed the lobby and cornered the check-in guard on duty. The primates turned toward Ron and one ape gestured to the six monkeys. "One against nine, this might leave a couple bumps in the morning," he said, letting out a battle cry with Rufus and charging into the fight. Ron moved with amazing agility and struck with surprising power, taking them down within a matter of minutes. He turned to the guard on duty, switching his leads like a boxer and spinning around, firing a finger gun at a downed ape. "They just got 360 no-scoped! You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," the guard said; he was a short and lanky boy with messy brown hair and broken thin-rimmed glasses.

"Why did they come in here?" Ron asked, hoping he'd get a name.

"They shouted about some doll, I don't know," the guard said, "I'm going to pass out now."

"Alright cool," Ron said, running toward the stairs. He went up every flight, taking out every monkey in his path, knocking on every door to check every civilian. He neared the top floor and heard a scream and then three thuds. He gasped and rushed up the stairs, kicking down the door.

"Ron Stoppable, member of Team Possible!" he said, barging in the room of the blonde girl Peter had been hanging out with lately; he had seen them around and she'd always leave with him after Peter would eat dinner with them. Three unconscious monkeys laid on the ground of the roomy double, with one side filled with pictures of the girl's family and friends while Peter's friend's side was covered in blueprints. The closet smelled a bit like burnt metal and the desk in the center of the room was littered with tools. He figured she was another engineer. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," she said, rolling off her bed in a white tee shirt and red pajama pants. She wore her glasses and had her hair up in a bun with several books spread out on the bed.

"Did you take these guys out?" Ron asked. Unless she got back on the bed, there was no way she took them out that fast by herself.

"Yeah," Vivian said, standing up and pushing Ron toward the door. "You're probably very busy so I won't annoy-"

Rufus jumped onto Ron's shoulders and pointed upward with an angry chitter. "Huh?" Ron looked up and to the ceiling and the shades to the room suddenly shook. "Aw, man!" he said, looking back at Vivian. "Don't trust Spider-Man," he said, taking a reluctant running leap out of her window and firing a grappling hook at the window of a room on the fifth floor, screaming the whole time. He rolled into the lobby of the ground floor, finding the primates already webbed in the corners of the room or on the floor unconscious. He growled in aggravation and ran up the flights, checking every room but finding Spider-Man had already completed his job. He was always one step ahead of Ron, and Ron hated that feeling. He made it up to the seventh floor and found one door open. He ran into the room labeled "Peter and Gil," finding it to be absolutely ransacked. The desk was overturned and the drawers had been thrown about the room, the bed turned over, the clothes all about the room, and books, small gadgetry and wiring, and school supplies all around the room. Two apes sat up against a wall, each unconscious and drooling. There was no sign of the Spider-Man. Ron took a quick look around the room, searching for any indicator of why the primates would search the room, or if it was just a result of the fight that he just missed. He found two MIST ID cards, one of Peter Parker's and another of Gil Lehnsherr's. He mocked Peter's grin with an exaggerated impression before contacting his partner. "Kim," he said in his kimmunicator. "It seems there was quite a bit of a scuffle in Peter's room, or they were looking for the idol. Spider-Man stopped them before I could engage."

He heard Kim sigh. "Is everyone alright? I'll be over there in 30 seconds."

Ron continued searching the room and Kim rushed into it, gasping at the mess. "Oh god," she said, "where are Peter and Gil?"

"I saw Gil at the game with his friends," Ron said, at least he thought he did. "Peter should be coming back from his research with your mom or whatever; his lab partner was back already."

"I just hope they're okay," Kim said.

"Kim? Ron?" Peter's voice said from down the hallway. Peter ran into his room. Ron noticed he looked unusually sweaty for someone walking home "Oh my gosh! What happened here?"

"Spider-Man wrecked your room while fighting our enemies," Ron said, "nothing was taken or damaged, so it's all good- did you see where Gil was?"

"He said he and his friends were going to the game," Peter said, quickly setting up his room again with their help. He closed the windows and fixed the blinds. "Why were these apes in my room?"

Ron explained to him what happened that morning, from Spider-Man stealing the idol to the attacks on the school. "Just don't trust the guy. All he brings is trouble."

"That's not true," Kim said, "he did help us stop the primates in the first place."

"It looks like he doesn't know how to clean up after himself, then," Ron said. He took a look around the room, finding nothing amiss except for the two handcuffed apes just outside the door.

"Let's do one more sweep around the halls and get back to the game," Kim said. "Peter, do you want to come back with us?"

"He's fine," Ron said quickly.

"I'm fine," Peter said, glancing at Ron, "but thank you."

"See Kim, he's fine so let's just-"

"I am going to the party afterward," Peter said, "are you two?"

"We're going together," Ron said, folding his arms.

"You're going?" Kim said with a confused stare. "Why?"

"I was a bit strong armed into going," Peter said, "but I might as well try it."

"It depends on how busy I am tonight," Kim said, "but I might see you there. Let's go, Ron."

"Alright, bye Peter," Ron said, following Kim out the door. For some reason, he didn't really like Peter. He felt like Peter was hiding something, never letting his true emotions show; he was very relaxed and amiable but calculating, and he and Kim talked a lot. It was like Peter was wearing a mask. Yeah, that was it. It had nothing to do with Kim at all.

* * *

 _Shego_

She sat in that jail cell for ten days. Not a call, no bail, both things Drakken would demand she do, and after waiting that time for Drakken to buy her bailout, no dice. She was getting sick of it, and Spider-Man simply made it worse. She knew it wasn't his fault though, she might be a bad girl but she was fair. Drakken started taking his aggression out on Shego, whether it was blaming her for his failures or throwing things at her when she tried to calm him down. She leaned forward in her tight green and black costume, pensively placing her chin in her hands as she tapped her cheek. She lost her patience and stood up in the gray, metal cell, walking toward the bars. She yawned, prying the bars apart and stepping out, triggering the red, blaring arms down the dim hallway. By the time any police showed up, she was already gone on one of their motorcycles. She put a helmet on with a glass visor and a built in headset. "Drakken, it's me," she said, "I'm coming back to the lair now. I have a little heat on my back but I'm going to lose them."

"Hurry up," was all Drakken said. Shego outmatched the policemen in riding skill and quickly passed through a dark and starry Middleton undetected. She found the rocky crevice serving as the entrance to her boss's lair and she skidded to a stop behind his chair.

"You forgot to pay bail, again," Shego said.

"You blundering buffoon!" Drakken barked, turning around in his chair at his wide desk. "Can't you see I'm working here? Go make yourself useful and order some food, I'm feeling like Indian food tonight."

"We need to talk," Shego said, feeling the rising anger bubbling through her veins as Drakken groaned.

"Take your emotions and capture Spider-Man with them," Drakken said bluntly, further insulting his henchman. "Unless they are making me king of the world or ordering takeout, I couldn't care less."

"We're _talking_ ," Shego growled, gripping his shoulder so tight she nearly crushed it.

Drakken smacked her hand away and turned back around. "Go away, Shego-"

"I quit," Shego blurted, silencing the blue devil.

"You what?" he scoffed.

"I _quit_ ," Shego said, "I'm sick of the way you've treated me for the past five and a half years, and your actions over the past month have been the last few straws."

Drakken laughed. "Do you hear yourself? You're a green _goblin_ of a woman! What are you going to do for a job? Please, Shego, you're just a disgruntled henchman who has gotten on my last nerve! Go into your room and think about what you've done."

Shego balled up her fists. "I'm not just a henchman, remember that most of your successes in this business were because of me," she said. A pained smirk stretched across her face. "You know, I thought that for once you'd actually pull your head out of your behind long enough to listen to what I had to say, but I was wrong. I guess I'll just have to show you how a real villain should act. I'll teach you a lesson for mistreating the drive behind your schemes."

Drakken scoffed. "You? Outdo me? Hilarious!"

"Keep laughing," Shego said bitterly, "I'll be downstairs. Good night."

Drakken smirked, hearing her stomp down the stairs to the elevator to her room. She always found that redundant, but he didn't see it. She went down to her room, which was set up like a jail cell practically, and gathered all of her belongings into a black duffel bag. She went through her drawers, placing the cut of all the recent jobs she succeeded into a smaller bag. It would be enough for an apartment until she could start pulling off serious heists. She waited until Drakken fell asleep at ten, he usually did, and he did tonight. She snuck out of her room and realized no one was going to stop her, so she traipsed across the floor to Drakken's project room.

"I really hope he didn't just get rid of these," she said, pulling open the doors to a heap of discarded suits and technology from past escapades. "Oh. Look at that." She started sorting through the objects, looking at the pieces with fond or bitter memories, more bitter than fond, and she found what she needed. She closed the doors and changed into a black spandex jumpsuit with a neon green outline of the sleeves and thin shoulder pads for rolling that zipped from the thin neck down to her navel. She slipped on green, paper thin gloves and socks that were covered in bionic wiring. There were small, gold pads that fit on her pale green fingertips and toes that she adjusted before covering the biomechanical wear with black clawed gloves and steel-toed combat boots built for running. Dark green lines traveling to her fingertips from the palm and back of the hands glowed brightly, as well as the laces for her shoes. She completed the outfit by pulling the mask with tiny, green glowing scalp ridges attached to the jumpsuit over her head with a set of yellow goggles that turned clear as soon as her peered out of them and made her green eyes glow like the neon tracings. She noticed that the mask gave her night vision and a targeting HUD. "This will come in handy," she said, "too bad Drakken wore the suit the first time." The mask forced her hair inside of the jumpsuit, bringing more attention to the figure-hugging spandex and her black lipstick. She continued looking through the discarded projects, finding a dark green, slim utility belt with at least 30 different compact pockets for weaponry and tools and a dark green, ovular hoverboard with six small rocket thrusters pointing upward and inward. The board had a large, white "G" in the center of it- she had forgotten which tech lab they stole this from. Finally, she pulled a set of collapsible whips with electromagnetic hooks on the other end for a nearly limitless range for casting them out. She opened the doors with the hoverboard under one arm, closing the doors behind her as she hopped onto the board.

The board roared to life, nearly throwing Shego off as it sped toward the wall. Shego regained her balance and skidded to a halt right before she slammed into the wall. She chuckled nervously and cautiously flew her way toward the garage in the dark lair. She flew through the garage door and rolled onto the ground. The board seemed to stop on her command, waiting for its master to return.

"Whoever built that, props to them," Shego said under her breath. She turned toward one of the metal spiders that hadn't fled and ran toward it as the HUD stained it red in her vision, laughing as the power socks made her move faster than a speeding car. She leapt toward the machine and threw all her might into a right hook enhanced with her green energy, cleaving the beast in two. "You're going to make a girl quite a bit of money tonight," she said, tossing the duffel bag on the board and kicking a hole into the garage door. She hopped onto the board and the light to the garage flipped on, startling the supervillainess. Shego gasped and whipped around, facing her former employer in his robe and pink pajama hat.

"Intruder! Intruder!" Drakken barked, whipping out his freeze ray and firing at the black and green woman on his stolen device. "Shego!" he shouted back. "Be of use and take out this intruder!"

Shego dodged the frost beams and burst toward the exit. Shego never came to his aid. "I don't think she's coming," she taunted.

"Shego!" Drakken shouted angrily. He noticed the black lipstick and the anger drained from his face. "Shego?" he said in an outraged yelp, watching her sail out of the lair and into the sky.

"I'm a green _goblin_ , yeah? Nothing but a monster?" Shego said, taking off into the night. "I'll show you how much of a monster I can be."

* * *

 _Peter_

He finished his homework over his desk that night to the roar of his classmates at the game halfway across campus. That's what he did, usually, on Saturday nights, besides for taking down the occasional supervillain. His right hand cramped as he looked at the stack of books. "39 questions for chemistry, 43 for math, two short answers for political science, 15 short answers for engineering, one hand I'll never be able to use again, and a pounding headache! Go MIST!" Peter said under his breath. At least he could work in his room this time. Gil hadn't returned from the game yet, giving him time to return the ape carnage on his side of the room to the appropriate piles under Gil's bed or on top of it. He took off his glasses for a second and took the idol out of his pocket, glancing toward the closed window with a chuckle. "I wonder how duped their boss felt after finding my lair with nothing inside it." He dropped from the ceiling and did a handstand on his desk, rolling off of it and vaulting onto the bed in his MIST green and gold sweatshirt and blue jeans with his costume underneath. "Pew pew," he said, pretending to fire the web shooters on his wrists. "Yeah, that's cool." He heard a knock at the door and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He crawled across the wall and silently landed on his feet. He opened the door. Bonnie stood in the doorway with her ticket for that night's party, something Peter had forgotten about. Maybe the apes hit him too many times on the head. "Hi, Bonnie, I-"

"What are you doing in that?" Bonnie said, wearing a green and gold tank top and black leggings that hugged her figure. The apes must have hit Peter on the head, because for a girl who was constantly being mean to his friends and sometimes him, she looked good. "It's a party with alcohol, not a party with LAN access- and lose the glasses, you look better without them."

"I need these to see," Peter lied. Bonnie walked into the room and looked around. She waved her hand in Peter's face.

"No you don't, you're fine. Here, move." She brushed past him and opened his closet, sifting through his clothes. "Don't you have anything cool?"

"I like my clothes, thank you very much," Peter said, catching a green and gold tee shirt, khaki pants, and his sneakers.

"Really? New Balances?" Bonnie said. "You'd better be thanking god you're cute, or else this wouldn't be happening. Hurry up; I want to get there before the setlist is decided." She slammed the door and waited.

Peter sighed and changed anyway, rolling up the sleeves of his costume and stashing the gloves, web shooters, and idol in his pants. He emerged from the room and was immediately dragged by Bonnie across the campus to a large frat house that literally shook from the sound system. Bonnie and Peter waited in a long line of Bonnie's friends, all talking to each other and her while he was just there. Why was he here again? They got to the front of the line and a lean, muscular, tan student wearing the frat's respective letters on his backward baseball cap let Bonnie in without even looking at her ticket. He looked at Peter and held out his hand.

"Ticket?" he said.

Peter produced the ticket and the check-in took his sweet time checking its authenticity while letting every girl and jacked bro go inside. "Is there a problem?" Peter asked.

The check-in looked back at Peter and took the ticket. "Go in," he said bluntly.

Peter walked inside the tall double doors and was smacked with the body heat of everyone stuffing themselves into the frat house. He wasn't sure, and didn't care, where the lines for the alcohol started, there were three ping pong tables set up for beer pong and a neon flashing strobe light dance floor in the basement. On the couch near the stairs was a couple furiously making out, and upstairs was where the bathroom was and where people relaxed. The entire place had a light scent of alcohol breath, or 'Parfum d'Logan,' as Peter called it when around a certain mutant. He felt Bonnie grab his arm and take him to the front of the shot line.

"Two shots of rum, please?" Bonnie said. She handed the golden brown liquid in a tiny paper cup to Peter and she dragged him into a circle with several cheerleaders and the three football players he had met Thursday. Brick glared at Peter and Bonnie before raising his shot. "To another win?" Bonnie said, all of her friends except Peter and brick took the shots.

"Oops, sorry about that," Brick said, turning his drink upside down on Peter's head.

Peter looked up and darted back, catching the rum into his cup and handing it to Brick. "No worries," Peter said, handing him his cup.

"Let's dance, Peter," Bonnie said, dragging him again across the room and beginning a night of awkward dancing, even more awkward and brief grinding, and wallflowering-ing only to get dragged back in. He never stayed for more than twenty minutes at a time; his Spidey Sense had been leading him more than once around campus to take care of leftover primates and occasional burglars and robbers. He dropped onto the top of the frat house again and crawled on the ceiling of the top floor of the frat house filled with drunk and unvigilant people who couldn't do so much as care to look up. Peter changed into his party clothes again and rushed back to the dance floor, pushing his way to Bonnie for the fifth time that night.

"Sorry I left, again," Peter said, awkwardly trying to copy another guy's moves. "Phone call."

Bonnie smiled as they danced but she still questioned him. "You've had five phone calls since we've been here," she said, "and if your Aunt is asleep in our time zone, then you're going to have to find a better reason to leave." Her smile faded. "I get it, you don't want to be here, but at least try, okay? No more leaving."

Peter was trying, however. He just wasn't good at it. Two more "phone calls" later and ten more songs and Bonnie and Peter sat up against the wall on a bench, the slightly buzzed Bonnie starting to talk about anything. She was a very smart girl; Peter knew this already, but her competitiveness and meanness stemming from her siblings' mistreating of her masked that. She giggled a little and turned toward Peter.

"So tell me about yourself," Bonnie said, "I don't really get to see you often outside study sessions and when you're out with Ron and Dim-witted Possible, and you seem to be getting the hang of this whole 'normal' thing, so what's under that shell, egghead?"

Peter laughed. "There isn't that much to know," he said, "I'm just a kid from Queens, New York, who likes pizza, baseball, science, and dogs."

"Oh, come on," Bonnie said, "you know that's not what I asked. Everyone already knows that."

Peter's phone vibrated and played a special ringtone. "Hold on one second; another phone call."

"No, Peter, come on," Bonnie said, scooching closer to him on the bench so their thighs touched. "Talk to me."

"I want to, but," he looked at his phone, seeing Drakken's name next to a downtown crime alert on an app on his phone. He was going on a night rampage; he couldn't waste any time. "I really do have to take this one."

Bonnie had glanced over, just barely seeing the word "alert" on the screen. Peter stood up. "Wait. It can wait, Peter."

"I'll be right back, I promise," Peter said, giving her a reassuring grin before standing up. Bonnie let Peter get about ten steps in front of her before she stood up too, following him up the stairs and toward the window leading to the balcony over the quiet, darker side of the house. Peter had vanished and Bonnie's anger swelled. Why didn't he want to hang out with her? Why wasn't he drooling over her like the other guys? She's Bonnie! She stomped over to the balcony for some peace and some fresh air, hearing nothing but the crickets overpowering the soft thumping from the basement speakers. A rustling in the bush by the road next to a parked car caught her attention. She stared at the creature silhouetted by darkness until it darted out in a flash of red and blue. She gasped and vaulted the balcony, landing on her feet then falling into the grass. She got up quickly and shook her head from the shock, looking down the road to see a head of short brown hair conceal itself with a red mask on Spider-Man's body before it took off on a webline.

Bonnie thought it was the alcohol talking at first, that in some crazy world, her self-proclaimed date was leaving so many times to go play superhero, but then she looked in the bush and under the car for curiosity's sake to find the animal making that noise and she found the green and gold tee shirt and pants she picked out for Peter neatly folded underneath. She slowly took them out and held them in her hands, absolutely slackjawed. "Oh. My. God." Her shock and awe slowly changed to a wide, starstruck grin with a twinge of mischief. "My, my, Peter Parker," she said, "there is far more about you than you would like to let on." She placed the clothes back under the car and hurried inside; surely enough, Peter was back in ten minutes in his party clothes.

He found Bonnie still on the bench looking at him with a triumphant grin. "Hey Bonnie, what did I miss?"

Bonnie stood up and wrapped her arm around his, making him recoil a little bit. Where did that come from? "Oh, nothing," she said. The thumping in the basement stopped and people started flooding the main floor again. "Let's go back, Peter. I can't wait to see you tomorrow for our studying session."

Peter blinked. "Why?"

Bonnie giggled and pulled him outside into the fresh air, taking the exposed vigilante back to the dorms.

 **THOUGHTS? REVIEW PLS.**


	10. Chapter 10

**OWN NOTHING**

 **HEY**

 **UPLOAD SCHEDULE:**

 **EVERYTHING AT LEAST ONCE IN THE NEXT 20 DAYS**

 **GET THROUGH AS MUCH KAKASHI GA KILL AS POSSIBLE BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS AGAIN**

 _Peter_

"Done so soon?" Doctor Possible said puzzled, taking Peter's exam from him as he stood in front of the rest of the auditorium, the first one done with the chemistry midterm. It was a test designed to take up all two hours, he did it in an hour and fifteen minutes. She examined his test to make sure he'd answered everything. It looked correct too. "Have a nice homecoming weekend," she whispered with a small smile, her expression changing seeing the stress and panic in his face as he forced a wide grin and shook her hand, half-running out of the exam room with a small wave to Bonnie. She was onto him, Peter knew, but as for what, he kept himself in the dark in case it was the worst. That's when relationships would really get complicated, but that wasn't what he was worried about.

"What is it now?" Peter groaned to himself as he left the building and started running in a full sprint for the seventh time today. "My Spider Sense has been freaking out all week," he grumbled to himself, ducking into an alleyway to change.

A man with a facemask and a crowbar stepped out from the shadows. "Hey buddy I-"

Peter kicked him in the face and simply continued changing, throwing the man's weapons over the rooftops after finishing up. He took out his SHIELD communicator willingly for the first time in a long time, looking both ways across the street before he took off into the sky on a webline. "Peter?" Nick Fury's voice said over the line. "You, calling me? I thought we were on your 'no-contact' list."

A rush of adrenalin that normally let him know something was wrong rocketed him across the rooftops and toward the city car factory, Honyotaru. He landed on a skyscraper roof overlooking the factory, seeing the GJN black SUV's lined out in front. "Something bad's about to happen, I don't know what- when's the artifact pickup?"

"Sunday," Nick said, "if you're in an emergency right now I can send Miles and Carol, if it's really bad I can get T'Challa to pull you out within six hours."

"Don't worry, I can survive until Sunday," Peter said, repeating it under his breath like he was remembering a due date. He chuckled to himself.

"Is something funny?" Nick asked.

"I have to put 'don't die' in my phone calendar for Sunday, I'll see your operatives in Denver. I should have said this way earlier, but, thank you," Peter said, diving toward the top of the building and spinning through an open window to the factory manager's office without a sound. It was a cramped, hot office, with a disorganized desk and a computer with Solitaire left open on the screen. A set of metal double doors opening inward was the only entrance to the factory floor, and it definitely wasn't soundproof, with the sounds of carnage and pain inside. He crept through the doors and vanished in the shadows on the ceiling of the open, warehouse-like building, sitting himself directly overhead a battle between Kim Possible and a squad of GJN agents versus a blonde, stocky mechanic with a mullet and handlebar mustache sitting in a thirty foot tall mechanical monster. "What is the redheaded Barbie doing fighting the offbrand Transformer?" he asked under his breath.

"Get ready, Kim, seriously!" the mullet man said with an evil, Southern biker growl. "You're about to be dead, get outta my way! Here comes Motor Ed!"

Kim flipped back just before the front of a truck acting as a fist crashed into the floor, crunching through concrete and steel below. "You're in ten different cars but there's no driver in your front seat!"

"Ehh, 6 out of 10 for that one," Peter shrugged, sailing behind the fight and delivering knockout strikes to the GJN agents before they even knew he was in the room. He sank back into the shadows just as the hood of a car smacked Kim into the air, spiraling out of control. He fired a spray of webbing at the wall behind her, catching her in a soft web. Kim reoriented herself, feeling relieved yet angry at her current circumstances and at the Spider-Man for making her life so much harder.

"You shoulda went splat, seriously!" Motor Ed said, cocking his fist back for a knockout punch with a Mercedes-Benz. "After I'm through with you, I'll parade around Middleton for a while, show off the new ride, y'know?"

Kim pulled at the webs, her heart pounding through her chest in fear as the shiny hood of a car only people like her parents could afford was about to turn her into roadkill, and Spider-Man turned her into an opossum on the road playing dead. A streak of red and blue flashed in front of her just before she closed her eyes to brace herself for impact. Upon opening them, there the East Coast vigilante stood on the web, his arms outstretched and catching the strike with strength unlike anything she'd ever seen. "You nearly killed me!" she shouted.

"I wasn't going to let him hit you! Have you been paying attention? Saving people's kinda my thing."

"It's my thing too," she said, "and I was taking care of it."

"Well, I'm willing to share," Spider-Man said, diverting the fist and letting it crash through the wall. "Kim! Catch the ornament on the hood before it falls! It's a collectible!"

"Are you going to let me go, hero?" Kim asked, growing even more frustrated that he had time to mess around during a time such as this. "Why would you even put me in this position while he's here?"

Spider-Man fired globs of webbing where the car joints of Motor Ed's machine met, making it harder for the mechanical maniac to move, but not by much. Spider-Man took a car to the forehead, slamming him into the wall. "We don't seem to have the best track record when it comes to working together," he grunted over a chevy trying to squish him like a spider and a boot, "if I can be completely honest here, you guys haven't given me the warmest welcomes, and I get it, dude in a red and blue spandex mega-onesie crawling up walls and spinning webs is creepy at first, but exterminating anyone like us is a bit extreme, don't you think?"

"Hey, Spider-Man!" Motor Ed said with a chuckle. "Guess what I'll call you when you're all bruised up and stuck in a hospital bed?"

"A Brown Recluse?"

"A Brown Recluse!"

"Terrific," Peter said bluntly. "That's funny. You're funny."

Motor Ed growled in frustration as Spider-Man slipped out of his crushing grasp and ran up the arm of his machine. "No one steals my punchline, seriously!" Ed shouted, trying to brush the arachnid off his arm.

"But actually, a brown recluse is, well, brown, and its venom destroys the walls of blood vessels near the site of a bite, sometimes causing a large skin ulcer," Spider-Man explained, kicking through a joint and swinging in between his legs, yanking on a webline to make the beast stumble back. "Research in 2013 revealed that a protein in the spider's venom targets phospholipid molecules, which make up a good portion of cell membranes, and transforms these molecules into simpler lipids." Spider-Man darted toward the front of the room and fired two weblines onto the mech monster's shoulders. He rocketed forward like a slingshot, kicking the suit's chest with such momentum it fell on its back. "The wound that is produced may require several months to heal, or it may become infected, which could lead to the death of the victim." Spider-Man leapt into the air, with Ed just seeing the black silhouette of the jumping spider as the glass dome on his station was yanked off. Another webline pulled Ed out of the seat, floating in freefall and completely helpless as Peter shot toward him. "Me? I just hit really, _really_ hard."

Kim winced at the flying Superman punch that nearly turned Ed's jaw into a car accident. The impact echoed around the room, and quickly did she realize how much he'd been holding back in their earlier fights. Spider-Man caught Ed and landed quietly on his toes, pinning Ed to the wall in a mess of web for when the police arrived.

"Huh." He stared at Ed's mustache for a moment before turning to Kim. "Did you ever notice he looks a lot like Hulk Hogan?" He looked back, scratching his chin as if in deep thought over his mustache. "Interesting. That is very interesting."

"Let me down, now!" Kim demanded.

Spider-Man looked at her for a moment in silence, as if pondering the benefits of complying. "You won't attack me, then?"

Kim opened her mouth to speak the instant her Kimmunicator went off. "Kim! Kim Possible! This is Betty Director! Ron said he's on his way and he has not heard from you since you went to apprehend Motor Ed. Were you able to secure Spider-Man?"

Kim sighed, pulling with all her might to reach into her pocket and turn her line off. "What do you want from me?"

Peter scoffed, folding his arms. "That's exactly what I wanted to ask you. Unless your group is some sort of hyper extermination squad and I'm just Spider-Man number seven on your hitlist, I don't understand why you need to take me down so badly. At least tell me what they want to do to me and why, then I'll let you down." He wanted her to say it, at least so she could hear how bad it sounded out of her own mouth.

"GJN agents are coming right now with Ron, and they'll be far worse to you than I was, just, please, let me down," Kim said, envisioning what Betty might have in store for anyone brought back to GJN headquarters. Nothing she imagined was pretty.

Spider-Man remained firm. "I'm not asking for much. Are they going to use me as ransom? Kill me? Blackmail me into working for them? I'm not hurting anyone-" He looked back at the dropped agents and Ed. "-who doesn't deserve it."

Betty had been unclear on the exact details pertaining to after his capture, and she worried that it was for her own peace of mind. "I don't know."

"We don't have time for this," Spider-Man said, feeling the familiar gut reaction that told him to jump.

"I'm being honest, I was never told what would happen after," Kim said, feeling like he knew that she knew just as much about her role in all of this as he did. "If I was going to attack you, I would have done it by now," she said, sliding down from the web and landing on her feet. The webbing on her arms melted and sloughed off in unraveled sheets of synthetic silk on the ground. "But don't think I trust you."

Kim and Spider-Man stared at each other in a moment of vivid silence, reading each other's body language and demeanor to determine what they planned on doing next. "No, I completely understand," Spider-Man said, "I guess it's strange, getting used to seeing me in your neighborhood at first, I just don't understand why you, or I, have to die for it."

The garage doors to the front of the factory were blown open in that instant, with Ron and 15 GJN agents rushing inside. 15 red dots were aimed between Peter's eyes, as well as the sudden flurry of strikes from Kim's sidekick. Peter effortlessly dodged the strikes, sensing each strike growing with ferocity and aggravation. "Kim, help me out here?" Ron asked, seeing Kim in a conflicted daze, her fists up but stance weak.

"You know something," Peter said, half speaking as himself as he leaned out of a high kick from Kim that nailed Ron's cheek, "I have this feeling that you don't really like me." Ron threw a punch and Spider-Man gave him an ounce of his strength, half tossing him into a squad of charging agents. "Wanna talk about it?"

Ron's face was red with frustration as he hopped to his feet, deploying Rufus to close the gap. "Yeah, once you're in jail!"

"Attacking the innocent is a crime punishable by law," Spider-Man said, mimicking a deep-voiced, serious lawyer type. He flipped all the way back to the railings toward the overseer's office on the upper floor. Shots rang out toward him, but he seemed to know where to move just before the bullets flew toward him to dodge. "We can be cellmates!" he teased in his regular voice. "I get top bunk, okay?" His personal cell phone started buzzing inside his pocket. "Gotta go, it's been fun!" he said, fading into the office he came in and taking off into the city once again. He dipped into the nearest alleyway where another shady man with a crowbar walked toward him with a vicious smile. Peter pulled out his cell and answered it as the man swung. "Hello? Oh, Bonnie!" he said, catching the crowbar and yanking it away. "Hold on, one second-" He turned to the would-be mugger. "Hi. Can I help you?" he snapped.

"Gimme your wallet!" he shouted, pulling out a switchblade.

Peter glared at him. "I am _on the phone_."

The mugger and Peter stared at each other for a moment, the mugger taken back by how nonchalant his victim acted. "You- you do know I'm trying to take your wallet, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, black snow cap, fingerless gloves, three dollar switchblade- I'll deal with you in a second," Peter said quickly, returning to the phone. "Yeah, I'm fine, just bumped into a guy on the sidewalk," he chuckled, "why do I even have these glasses, right?"

The criminal put the knife to Peter's throat but Spider-Man was unfazed. "I said-"

"Sorry, Bonnie, Bonnie, hold on-" He glanced at the knife and back up at the mugger. "Let me show you why that's a bad idea." He picked up the crowbar again, squeezing harder and harder until he left dents from his fingers as the man watched. "Yeah, I'm so sorry for being late," he said into the phone. "I got busy with research, I'm walking home right now."

Peter kicked himself. He just took an exam with the prof he said he was doing research with.

"It was Vivian, she needed help with PCR," Peter lied.

A speeding taxi cab flew by, with several loud honks behind it that just screamed "you're in the city so stop trying to lie about where you are."

"No, no, I'm walking from lab on north side," Peter said, not needing to look as he pinned the man's hands to the wall with his spider webs. "Today got a little complicated, I'm sorry, like I said, I'm on the way."

He hung up and turned toward the man of crime.

"Can I trust you to chill here, for like, five, six minutes? Once the cops show up you'll be in a warm car."

"When I get my hands on you I'll rip off your jaw and make you drink bug spray."

"Now _that_ will be a day."

"Let me go!"

"No," Peter said, darting into the sky. He waved to the night news helicopter as he soared by and landed on a rooftop, running at full speed before leaping off again. He bounced from rooftop to rooftop and ran off the side of a building as he entered the center of the city, rocking through the sky and free falling hundreds of feet before agily landing on the train that stopped just outside of campus. He still felt a little bit of the adrenaline coursing through his veins and took a deep breath, crouching and taking off again with a webline on a lab building. He slipped from building to building until he was on the wall of his dorm building, just outside his window. He peaked inside and gasped, quickly ducking his head before anybody would see. "What the heck is she doing there?" he whispered to himself, hearing his cell phone go off, loudly. He dived into the bushes eight stories below as Bonnie opened the window, looking left and right in confusion. Peter sighed and wriggled out of costume, stuffing it in his bag and rising up in his unzipped red hoodie, white "Stark Industries" tee shirt, blue jeans and white running shoes. He fastened the glasses that made it harder to see onto his face and walked out smelling like shrubbery. He answered the phone just before she dropped the call. "I'm outside, I'll come up in a second! How are-"

Click.

Peter stared at her puzzled through the phone, although being an hour late to something was his fault. He shook the twigs out of his hair and stepped into a crowded elevator. The rising box was silent until they reached his floor. "Nice gloves," a short brunette said, smacking Peter in the face with the realization he still had his Spider gloves on. "They look like the ones that Spider Guy wears."

Peter cleared his throat. "Yeah, that is weird."

"Did you fall in the bushes?"

"This is my floor," Peter said, briskly walking out of the elevator with his hands buried in his pockets. He turned into the bathroom, stuffing his gloves in his hoodie pockets and looking in the mirror, sorting out his hair and wiping any remaining specks of mud off his shirt. His cellphone rang again and he groaned silently, taking it out and seeing Bonnie's face on the contact cover. "I really need to put this on silent mode more often," he grumbled, half-jogging into his room.

Bonnie sat on his bed looking a bit disturbed at the smiling Gil, leaning against their desk with his guitar and playing "Stairway to Heaven" poorly. "Wazzup, Petes," Gil said, his voice obviously meant to sound smoother and cooler. "Who's your friend?"

"...Petes?" Peter said, the tension hitting him harder than the truck that nailed him in the face earlier.

"Peter, it's about time," Bonnie said, looking more relieved than upset. She wore a pair of yoga pants and a green and gold tee shirt labeled "MIST Cheer" in big, standout letters, and she briskly walked out of the dorm. Gil looked Peter up and down with a chuckle and an approving grin as the secret super grabbed his backpack.

"See you tonight, brosky? Later dude!" Gil said.

Peter let out a nervous laugh and closed the door.

"Where were you?" Bonnie asked him again. "We still have our lab assignment for chemistry due by midnight, after that you agreed to go with me to the gym."

"I only knew about the first thing we were doing," Peter said, fixing his glasses to his face.

Bonnie stopped in the hall and turned Peter to her, looking up with a convincing smile. "Do you want to go to a post-midterms workout?"

"I was hoping that we could-"

"Thanks," she said, quickly hugging his arm and half-pulling him to her and Kim's room. "It's nine now, if we finish this by 10 we can be out by 10:15 and back by midnight. Afterwards there's a party at TKE but I might not go since this workout is for tomorrow's game, but I'll decide when we're finished."

"You have a game tomorrow though, right?" Peter asked. "You'll want to get enough sleep, to make sure you're ready for it."

"Please," Bonnie said, sitting on her bed with her legs crossed and her laptop open. "I've been ready for that since last Tuesday, it's Kim you have to worry about messing things up."

Peter had a feeling that wasn't the case. "Really?"

"You've seen it, come on," Bonnie said with her usual hint of disgust when she talked about her roommate. "Over the past few weeks, when we've been studying, she'll barge in half-ranting about Spider-Man and half-apologizing for it, to Ron." She looked at Peter's half-smile he usually employed when he was hiding something. She was good at picking up on that, mainly using it to convince him to go to different events, sliding herself right in any ounce of free time he had. "You wouldn't know anything about why she'd be so conflicted over this guy, would you?"

Peter imagined a big, red exclamation point hovering over his head, like in video games when his character would get in trouble. "Kim's vented to me a little about it, it sounds like a big misunderstanding."

Bonnie laughed. "I feel like after you've shot at someone it no longer becomes a misunderstanding."

"Nothing a therapist or even a random guy with a long red couch cannot fix," Peter said, setting himself up on his laptop at Bonnie's desk.

"You know I don't mind if you sit on the bed," Bonnie said.

"I know, I just like seeing everything laid out on the desk, I think better that way," Peter said, also avoiding any potentially awkward situations.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "It's all online, don't be nervous."

Peter acquiesced, sitting next to her at the edge of her bed. "Nervous of what?"

She ignored that question, setting her laptop down next to his. She stared intensely at his screen, his mouse hovering over the Google Drive button on his bookmarks bar. He had too many tabs open, with one of them particularly catching her eye: a police siren icon just next to the red X to close the tab. "What are all of these for?"

Peter started closing tabs, glancing at her watching his screen. "Just links to KhanAcademy for chemistry videos and other cram session things."

"Why the Middleton Police website?" Bonnie said in a very triumphant voice.

"I'm friends with Kim Possible," Peter said dismissively, pulling up the spreadsheets and posters of their data for the chemistry project. "For some reason whoever's fighting her always has a reason to pick on me. I have to be ready to hit the 911 button because they always want to chase me when I'm studying. It's more of a nuisance than anything else, really." He hit enter in the spreadsheet, letting the function and code he wrote sort the data out within the parameters set. Peter laughed and threw up a fist, stopping just before he hit Kim's bed and went through it. "All we have to do is fill out the report and we're done."

"What do you do outside of school?" she asked, opening a new document and filling out a data and results section for their lab report.

The inner Peter's eye twitched. "What do you mean?" he said coyly, typing up a storm with the introduction and abstract.

"I know you do research and help Kim's dad teach computer science, but I don't think you're as big of a nerd as you let on."

Peter simply kept his focus on the task at hand, laughing at the sting of that comment. "Thanks, Bonnie, I appreciate it."

"No, really, I'm interested," she said, sounding more sincere this time, "we hang out so much and I realize that I don't know a lot about you."

"You like mysterious guys, yeah?" Peter joked, poking at her shoulder.

Bonnie let out a surprised, gasping laugh. "Now that I did not expect, okay _Peter Parker_."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Peter chuckled. "We can talk about each other later, let's get to-"

"Although Brick said that recently he's seen you in the gym in the boxing area at night, he doesn't get why _you_ 'd be there."

"Tell Brick I was there to 'test the bag,'" Peter said with a flash of a smirk, "next time he asks." It was a good ploy she used- if he said he never went to the gym to box, he'd be lying because he did at one point joke around about it with Kim and Ron. Brick would have gone to the gym especially for student athletes, but Peter would only know that if he was at the gym daily which he said he wasn't. Clever girl.

"There's the Peter I want to know," Bonnie said with a wink, sticking her tongue out. Brick never said that.

"Let's talk on our jog over there," Peter said.

Bonnie figured she wouldn't get it out of him tonight. The thought of him being the man who stopped a truck from crushing a little kid on the freeway a few nights prior was imprinted in her head, and as reserved and bookish the guy next to her was, the thought of that kind of double life excited her. "Fair enough. Let's get to work."

Peter held in a sigh of relief. Every time they hung out it was like an interrogation session. She was still a good study partner though, even if she was prying his mask off his face, if she knew about it. 30 minutes of silence and clicking passed and they were both on the submit assignment page. "From this moment on, we can no longer edit this assignment."

"Yes."

"If we fail we fail- oh no! A mistake!" He clicked submit.

"Wait- wait-" Bonnie gasped, dragging her hands down her face. "No, no! Where is it? If you cancel the upload we can-"

"I'm kidding it's fine," Peter laughed, seeing Bonnie's face go bright red with anger.

Bonnie folded her arms, standing up and walking to her closet. "That's not funny, Peter, now get out and get ready to go. We ended a bit early so we can hit a few of the areas that close at 11 after our warmup."

"See you downstairs," Peter said, closing the door behind him and returning to his room. He opened the door and walked in. "Hey Gil, I'm going to the gym, do you want to-"

Gil's side of the room was always disheveled, but this time he wasn't there to manage the mess. He must have forgotten his cellphone, something he did often, but his surfboard was still leaned up against the closet door. His skateboard was gone, however.

"If I have to rescue you from drowning again…" Peter checked in his closet, opening the puzzle box that held the idol for pickup on Sunday, just to make sure it was still there. He threw on a pair of gym shorts and a black and gray tee shirt with a picture of a tall man in a black and grey steel panther suit with glowing, silver eyes crouched in a lunging position on the front with "Wakanda's Finest" on the back. He quickly realized how bad of an idea wearing that would be and opted for the plain, red and blue tee shirt instead. It was just big enough for him, but that was okay. He put on a pair of sneakers and put a bunch of water bottles in his backpack, throwing it over his shoulder and walking out with his glasses kept on by a tie in the back.

He walked over to the elevator, pressing it as the doors opened, seeing Kim and Ron standing there, arms folded, face and hair greasy and bruised, and looking distressed and quite upset. Lines of web from earlier were still in Kim's hair.

"Kim, Ron," Peter said, receiving an angry chitter and a hiss from Rufus. "...Rufus. Are you guys okay? What happened?"

 **AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED BY NOW I'M REVIVING THIS STORY. THE CHAPTERS WILL BE SHORTER TO MAKE UPLOAD TIMES FASTER BUT IF THERE ARE MULTIPLE PEOPLE WHO NEED A SPECIAL SEGMENT OF THE CHAPTER IT'LL BE ALLOTTED. TYYYYYY.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Eh I decided I'll finish this one**

 **Enjoyyyyyyyy**

* * *

" _Spider-Man_ happened, ugh," Ron said in frustration, brushing past him with Rufus continuing to hiss and snap at Peter. "Quiet, Rufus- Spider-Man really needs to just give up and turn himself in or stop getting in our way. He's only making our lives harder."

Kim was taken back by his sudden brash outburst, but she knew it wasn't really him. "He hasn't _done_ anything yet, Ron. We don't even know why we're fighting him, other than Betty thinks he's part of some mutant conspiracy."

Mutant. Peter flickered a frown but kept listening.

"You saw the footage she showed us," Ron said, folding his arms, "he hurt agents who were just doing their job, and we're just doing ours."

"You don't say that when we're the ones getting attacked," Kim said, "Ron, Betty has you all scared because she made some extreme generalizations about a minority that has abilities that she thinks she needs to regulate, nothing more."

Ron laughed in disbelief with Rufus shaking his head on his shoulder. "What, have you spoken to him? Do you know who he is?"

"No, Ron, just," Kim sighed, "don't let your frustration with not pleasing the Director get in the way of doing what is right. We're heroes first, agents second."

Ron wiped the sweat off his brow, taking a deep breath to calm himself down. "Maybe you're right. Sorry, it's been stressful lately."

"It's fine," Kim said, giving a small smile to Peter. "Hey, Peter," she said, greeting Bonnie with a small frown. "Bonnie."

"Just came in from fighting the world's biggest deep fryer?" Bonnie taunted.

"Shut up," Kim said, rolling her eyes. "Shouldn't you be asleep and out of my hair? We have the homecoming game tomorrow."

"I'm taking Peter to work out, duh," Bonnie said, "it looks like you've been worked out, so don't come with. We don't need you screwing up the routine."

Kim laughed. "If you were as good at cheerleading as you were talking…"

"Don't project, sweety," Bonnie spat back.

"Everybody here seems pretty tired," Peter said, feeling his "special" phone buzz in his pocket. "Bonnie, we just finished a project in a few hours that should have taken us all day. I don't mean to flake, but I don't think right now would be the best time for us to go. How about tomorrow morning at seven, right before the gym opens? Right now it's going to be packed."

Kim's kimmunicator went off with the signature tone and Kim and Ron groaned, peeling themselves from the wall and heading out. "Seeya, Peter," Ron said.

Peter didn't think Bonnie would buy it. "So, uh, tomorrow, then?"

Bonnie simply smirked at him. "Sure," she said. "Just don't forget it. _Then_ , I'll be angry."

Peter gave a nervous chuckle, giving her a side hug before walking toward the door. "Don't worry about it. Just get some rest. I'll be at the game tomorrow, of course."

"See you tomorrow," Bonnie said, seeing the flashing screen of a small, discreet flip phone just before he closed the door, " _Spider-Man_ ," she whispered.

Peter's alarm went off in an explosion of sound from Cowboy Bebop's _Tank!_ scaring him and Gil awake. "Jesus dude," Gil said, wrapping his head in the pillow while Peter texted Bonnie before turning the alarm off. "Get a different alarm!"

Peter hopped out of bed and went into his closet, pulling out his gel soap, shampoo, and shower sandals with a towel. "It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't play Halo until five thirty in the morning every night."

"And I'm getting an A too, Pete," Gil said.

"That's besides the point," Peter said.

"I'm going to make your ringtone twerk music when you're not looking and call you during class," Gil said, sitting up and glaring at Peter in silence.

They both started laughing. "Okay, I'll find something else."

"Now I'm awake," Gil said with a yawn, rolling out of his bed. "I guess I'll go skate or something, we're still meeting at 12 to work on the engineering project with Ron and the international kid, right?"

"Dmitry," Peter said, just saying it made his Spidey Sense tingle. "Yeah, at Matiler. I'm probably going to be there a little earlier than that, I'll be out anyway so I might as well."

He came back ten minutes later in a tee shirt that was light blue on one side and dark blue on the other with a white lightning bolt down the center. "Where are you headed now?"

Peter slung his gym bag over his shoulder. "Gym, I promised Bonnie since I couldn't last night."

"Ohohoho," Gil laughed suggestively.

"Okay."

"Oho _HoHOHOHOHOHOhohoho_ …"

"Gil, I get it-"

" _OHOHOHOHO_ -"

"Gil!" Peter snapped, fastening his glasses to his face while chuckling himself. "It's not like that, okay?"

"Nah bro, totally get it," Gil said, sliding the skateboard out from underneath his bed. "I guess then, you wouldn't care if I asked her out to the homecoming party, then?" he said with a smirk.

Peter blinked. "No," he said, "no, I wouldn't."

That only made Gil press more. "What if I asked her out, right now?"

Peter cleared his throat. "Well, uh, it'd be kinda weird, being _seven in the morning and trying to go somewhere_ and all. I'm going to go."

"Alright bro," Gil said as Peter left the room.

Peter waved to Bonnie, Kim, and Ron waiting for him at the end of the hall in workout clothes and ran up to them. "Kim, Ron, you're joining us?"

"Yeah, joining _you_ ," Kim corrected, making Bonnie scowl. "Ron and I usually hit the gym this early too, criminals tend to sleep in."

Peter laughed. "Good thing for that, right?"

"Even better," Bonnie said, "I have access to the student athlete gym with a running track around it, a boxing ring, and gymnast section right by the weights. Stick with me and I'll let them know you're a guest, okay? I like to jog there in the morning so you'd better keep up."

"That sounds great, let's do it!" Peter said.

"Are you a morning person?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, I'd say so," Peter said as they piled into the elevator.

Ron yawned. "I hate you."

"Me too," Peter said.

They started stretching right outside the building, loosening up before Bonnie started a jog toward the edge of the residential square. "I said keep up!" she called back, followed by Kim taking off not to be outdone.

Ron left Peter behind without a second thought but Peter quickly caught up. "Thanks for waiting up," he said, passing Ron and cruising behind Kim just to pass her too. He caught up to Bonnie without breaking a sweat. "On your-"

"Wait what-"

"Left," Peter finished, striding past her and slowing his pace so she and Kim could catch up with Ron barely behind them.

"This is just a jog, okay?" Bonnie said with a competitive smile. "If you want to race as a good cardio warm up, I'll gladly crush you."

Peter returned a coy smile. "I think you'll find I'm not as soft as you think."

"I think you'll find that Bonnie isn't as good as she says she is, Peter," Kim teased, sticking her tongue out at Bonnie.

"You guys haven't seen anything yet," Ron said, already sweating as they walked into a state of the art gymnasium, one room dedicated to weights and cardio with a red, quarter-mile track running around it. A boxing ring sat in the center with a few burly seniors sparring in the box, while about forty to fifty other student athletes rowed, lifted, cycled, and ran. "Are you guys ready to get smoked?"

Peter put his bag down by the wall and took the outermost ring of the track, bouncing on his toes like a boxer on his running shoes and stretching. "Ron, what does your routine usually look like? We can spot each other if you'd-"

Bonnie stood in between Kim and Peter. "After this, you can spot me."

Peter chuckled. "Okay then."

"I'm going," Kim said, "come on, Ron, let's do three miles this time!"

" _Three_ miles?!" Ron blurted out, darting behind Kim as she bolted through the first fourth of the track. He looked back, seeing Peter and Bonnie following them at a decent pace but picking up speed. "Uh, yeah, no problemo here!"

Peter and Bonnie passed Ron but only Bonnie was sweating out of the two, with Peter slowly inching away from her. He looked fine. Kim looked over her shoulder, almost shocked to see Peter suddenly next to her. She knew she had a superhero build, but Peter wasn't a slouch either. He hadn't broken a sweat yet either. "What's your routine after this?" she asked. "I'll do more cardio, weights, then I'll hit the bags for a bit," she said, throwing some punches in the air. "The bad guys won't beat themselves."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they did, one day," Peter said, "we have about the same routine I'd say, I'm guessing you do MMA as part of your hero training."

"Heck yeah," she said with a grin. "A little gymnastics too, of course, but I take care of that during cheer practice."

"With your schedule, I'm surprised that you don't collapse," Peter said.

"I've written a few essays on the Director's jet," Kim chuckled, "do you want to know my secret?"

Peter feigned a gasp. "What makes Kim Possible possible?"

" _Coffee_ ," Kim said, "it has saved me more than any hero gadget."

"Especially with your parents as university staff," Peter said, "the pressure is _on_."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me," she said, taking in a deep breath. "If you don't mind, I'm going to pick up the pace."

"It's not a race," Peter said with a joking enthusiasm. Kim looked back again, seeing Peter glide past her. "On your left," he said, leaving her in the dust like no one had done before.

Peter burst ahead, rounding the first lap and passing Ron. "On your left."

Bonnie looked back as well, doing a double take as Peter was in front of her two minutes ago. "How did-"

"On your left," Peter said calmly, passing her without even a look. She knew how he did it though, but it still surprised her.

Kim looked across the track, seeing Peter halfway through his second lap while she just finished her first. She looked ahead, inspired to push herself a little more. "I thought you said it wasn't a race-"

"On your left," Peter said, making her jump as he passed her again. He didn't look like he was sprinting either, or even working up a sweat yet.

Ron looked over his shoulder, straining himself to go faster just to try to delay the inevitable. "Come on, man! Don't-"

"On your left," Peter said, blazing past him and everybody else on the track.

Peter finished his sixteenth lap while everybody else was barely starting their twelfth, coming up quickly on Kim yet again. "Don't you dare say it-"

"On your _left_ ," Peter said, running right off the track and leaning against the wall, his hands behind his head.

Kim finished second with Bonnie and Ron finishing soon after, joining Peter against the wall. Now he looked warmed up, sweaty but only after four miles straight. "What sport did you say you played again?"

"Cross country in my spare time," Peter said, "I took a little boxing to get the bullies off my back for awhile, so cardio's my thing."

"Never would have guessed," Kim said, breathing hard. "Wanna hit the weights?"

"Can you hit the weights?" Bonnie taunted.

"I need some work," Peter said, "but I'd say I'm pretty average at it."

As Ron and the rest quickly noticed, he was far beyond average. Peter gave his best strained face as he went from 150, to 200, up to 275 for a deadlift, but there was no tension or stress in his body at all. Peter would have to come back much later, in order to properly keep himself up to standard. Every exercise for the next hour and a half Peter destroyed the other three unintentionally, purposely slipping a couple times to seem human again. Peter stood over Kim spotting her as she completed a bench press with plates the size and thickness of car tires. "Push, Kim! Shego can do better than that!"

"Why are you stating the obvious?" Bonnie said, looking down at Ron barely able to push the bar three inches off his chest.

Kim let out a battle cry, lifting the bar all the way up until her arms were nearly straight out. "There you go, there you go," Peter said supportively with her eyes closed tight, straining every muscle in her arms and chest for the lift. His special phone buzzed in his pocket and on instinct his hand darted inside, slipping just the top out so he could see what was up. "Sorry, Kim- after this one, I have to go!"

Ron's jaw dropped at the subtle and quick display of strength, knowing that for a moment his classmate held the entire weight in one effortless curl. Peter returned his hand to the weight and set it down. "Man, that one was tough," Kim said, sitting up and hearing her kimmunicator beep, "but it appears we can't take a break just yet, Ron. Where are you headed, Peter?"

"Back home," he said quickly, "there's a spider in Aunt May's room and she doesn't want to go near it."

Kim laughed. "Seriously? You'd better run fast if you want to catch it in time."

Bonnie smirked. "Yeah, seriously?"

"I'll be back before the game, I have to meet Ron and Dmitry at 12 anyway," Peter said. "Kim, I cannot offer you much for this excellent session, but what I can give you is one, extra crisp, high five."

"Oh my god," Kim sighed, accepting the offer. Peter dashed out of the gym, waving back quickly while slinging his back over his shoulder. "He's so busy all the time," she said, "I never see him outside of class or when he's hanging with Bonnie."

"Maybe it's because people like me more than you," Bonnie said bluntly.

Kim laughed condescendingly at the insult. "Big doubt, but whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Hey Kim," Ron said, his mind stuck on the extraordinary feat he witnessed. "Have you ever noticed that he always leaves as soon as we get a crime alert?"

Kim looked at him curiously while Bonnie hid a smirk. They stepped outside, where the campus had become buzzing in preparations for the homecoming game. "He has other things to do besides get in the way of our rogues, Ron," she said, "given that he's been in the crosshairs lately, I don't blame him."

Ron saw the back of Peter's head as he raced down the street, turning the corner and vanishing. "Maybe the naco I ate last night had some bad sour cream in it, because that just makes me more suspicious."

"Suspicious of what?" Kim asked.

Ron shook his head. "Nothing, I guess."

"What, Ron?" Kim said. "You think he's in a mask, running around Middleton as one of Drakken's goons or something? Did you strain yourself trying to keep up with him or something?"

"I wasn't going to say it, but," Ron took a deep breath, knowing that he'd probably get laughed at, "you ever notice that after Pete leaves, we always find Spider-Man finishing _our_ missions before we even get there?"

Kim stared at him in disbelief. "Ron…"

"All I'm saying is that I've never seen Pete and Spidey in the same room, that's all," Ron said, preparing to accept whatever came out of the girls' mouths, "and all of the sudden this guy, who's from the same town as Spider-Man, beats us at every fitness test."

"I've been hanging out with him this whole semester," Kim said, rolling her eyes. "He's just quiet. He doesn't talk about himself much-"

"That's exactly my point-"

"And nobody should pressure him into doing so," Kim finished. "I'd know if he was, Ron, trust me on that one."

Bonnie couldn't help but giggle at the irony of it all, but she said nothing. "Well," Ron said, putting away his own quiet conviction away for peace, "okay. You're right. I don't know him that well to be honest, maybe I just need to get to know him."

"I've been thinking of letting him tag along on one of our missions," Kim said, making Ron's jaw drop.

"Let's not get too hasty now!" Ron said, following Kim toward the scene of the crime.

The smell of soldered metal burnt Peter's nose as he entered the engineering basement, nodding to a few passing, tired engineering students as he turned the corner into a large, open workshop area with large lockers by every wide table. Vivian worked at one of the tables with one set of lockers reading "Peter, Ron, Dmitry, Gil, do not touch" and the other just reading "Vivian

"Peter!" Vivian waved to him, rolling up the blueprint open on the table. She held a blowtorch in one hand and a welding mask in the other, with a small, circular disc that glowed bright white like an intense flashlight on the table. The smell of burnt metal and sawdust grew stronger the closer he got to the table, with the heat making his glasses fog up. Vivian wore simple clothes she didn't mind getting dirty with her hair up in a tight bun and dirt and dust all over her face and hands. "Check this out! This is what I've been working on!"

Peter quickened his pace, greeting her with a smile and turning his attention to the small device in her hand. The back of it had small ridges and grooves, as if it locked into a larger mechanism. "It's certainly bright," Peter said, shielding his eyes. "It looks like some sort of reactor, right?"

Vivian giggled giddily. "I think you know exactly what kind of reactor this is," she said, running her finger around the steel ring holding the reactor in place. She gently put it in Peter's hand. "It's not _that_ bright, Peter."

Peter felt around the ring and in the grooves, and soon his eyes were struck wide with surprise. "It's an arc reactor!"

"Tony Stark's going to be in Denver tomorrow to deliver a TechTalk at one," she said excitedly, "I wanted to give him this, as a gift, or maybe he'll at least sign it. It might not be as good as his, but this little puppy can power an entire city for a month."

Peter would have to call Mr. Fury about that. "This is genius, Vivian! Doctor Stark hasn't shared the arc reactor blueprint with anyone, and you just recreate it from scratch? That's worth _at least_ a selfie and a LinkedIn add."

"Gosh, I hope so," Vivian said with a laugh, taking it back and carefully slipping it inside a metal briefcase padded with packing material to protect it. "Are you going?"

"Of course," Peter said, "it'll be nice seeing him again."

"I don't mean to be pushy, but," she said with a blush, "could you help me with this? Since you know him and all, it might be easier to meet him with you there."

"Yeah, I can do that," Peter said with a reassuring grin. "It's no problem."

"Yes!" Vivian said, wrapping him in a tight hug. "Thank you so much! I'm going to catch the bus at 10 tomorrow morning so I can get there before 12, that's when they start letting people in."

"I'm going to have to meet you there," Peter said, looking down at the black outlines of her arms going around his ribs from the dirt, "but I'll be on time."

"Then I'll see you there," she said with a smile, turning around to leave with a wave. "Bye, Pete- oh!"

"Whoopsie!" a familiar, sharp Russian voice exclaimed.

"Hey, Dmitry," Peter said dryly, catching Vivian before she hit the ground. "You're here early too?"

Dmitry scoffed, brushing the dirt off his black turtleneck and black pants. "Obviously, but don't make another assumption and say I'm here for the project."

Peter stared at him blankly. "Oh, uh, okay."

"I am here because of you, Vivian," Dmitry said, his wide and unsettling smile spreading across his face.

Vivian returned with a nervous smile at the blunt and forward young man. "Do I know you?"

Dmitry chuckled, whipping out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back. "No, but with the homecoming celebration occuring after the game, that I am not going to because sports are pointless, I was hoping I could take such a pristine and perfect jewel such as yourself out for the evening. I have seen you working here day and night like me, although we haven't spoken, I know that this is an opportunity neither one of us should pass up. I could teach you about engineering, you could teach me… we'll figure that part out later, but when can I pick you up?"

Vivian stepped back awkwardly, glancing toward Peter for help. "Actually, I'm not going to any of the parties after the game. I'm too busy this weekend, but surely someone else would want to go."

Dmitry's smile seemed to crack, it was still a smile but it certainly was no longer friendly. "Of course," he said in his cheeriest voice. "Well, plenty of other days of the week. Are you going to the TechTalk tomorrow?"

"Yeah, um," Vivian said, taking another step back and directly looking at Peter. "We're going."

Dmitry's beady eyes locked onto Peter's and his face turned beet red. Peter wasn't sure if it was from embarrassment or rage. "I see," he hissed, his face suddenly morphing back to its normal, emotionless expression with a slight scowl. "Well, no harm done, then. Leave us, Peter and I need to discuss important matters."

Peter stepped up. "Hey, you can't talk to her like-"

"Peter," she said sharply, silencing him. "I have to go. See you tomorrow."

Peter and Dmitry watched her leave in a huff, making Dmitry scoff. " _Women_."

Peter cut him a mean look. "That wasn't okay, Dmitry. Where do you get off talking to anybody like that?"

"Your feelings are irrelevant to the task at hand, simpleton," Dmitry said, scuttling over to the work station. "Let's get this over with. Although I laid my heart bare before her and she stomped on it, I have one more hope for tonight."

"Wassup, dudes?" Gil said from around the corner, walking in with his normally easy going grin and his skateboard tucked under one arm. "Dmitry, I see you got the flowers, are you going on a date or something tonight, dude?"

Dmitry grunted. "Plan A was ruined," he said, "but yes, I fully plan on going to the homecoming gala downtown tonight."

"There's a gala tonight?" Gil said with great aloofness, making Dmitry boil with anger.

"It's the fanciest fall semester affair, dimwit," he spat, "and I am going there tonight with Kim Possible on my arm."

Peter wanted to snort but he held it in. "You're going there with _who_ now?" Ron said, running into the room fresh from a mission and looking absolutely beat.

"Let's get to work," Peter said, walking toward the table.

"There is no work," Dmitry said sharply, sitting down with the rest of the boys and reaching into his backpack. He rolled one large blueprint over the other three, even stomping on Gil and Ron's hands to move it out of the way. "Our project entails the creation of automation in order to imitate life and one if its countless and pointless biological processes, my design does just that, while respecting the pioneers of bioengineering gone before their time."

Peter, Gil, and Ron looked over the complicated and intricate design of a long plate that was thin and flexible like a spine, hooked to four long tentacle arms each with four-fingered grabbers for acute fine motor skills. Peter swallowed nervously, glaring again at Dmitry and back down at the design.

"It hooks up to the user's spinal cord via a manual puncture just above the back of the neck and another above their coccyx with smaller integrations around the spine," Dmitry said proudly, "with powerful electric currents running from the brainstem downward to relay any response to external stimuli to one of the four arms as shown. Certainly we don't even need to look at your designs, we can turn this in, but you need to state that I did all the work and get graded accordingly."

The other three boys looked at each other, then back at Dmitry. "No."

Dmitry nearly jumped over the table. "It suffices for our three criteria, economic, ethical, and feasible. It would be approximately eight and a half million, no more than a tank. The arms can function as legs for the paraplegic and act as a tool for the elderly to live out the rest of their pointless lives, and this has been done before by the hero Doctor Octavius during his plight against the world."

"Our project hypothetical budget was one hundred thousand, Dmitry," Peter said, "the entry method would have to be a permanent installation as removing it from around the user's spine would _kill_ them, and we agreed to not copy another scientist's work, especially the work of a domestic terrorist."

Dmitry scoffed. "You have no idea what you're talking about, you never do," he spat, "because you are scared to even hypothetically consider the benefit of reviving a revolutionary work such as his means you don't get an opinion. Just be quiet, and stay out of my way, all of you, or deal with the consequences."

Peter stayed calm, simply leaning back in his chair. "Whoa, not cool," Ron cut in, "roll it back, Dmitry, the team isn't just you."

Dmitry smirked. "Then, as you Americans say it," he said, "it's my way or the highway."

Peter, Ron, and Gil turned to each other again. Gil chuckled. "I guess I'm driving."

Dmitry's smugness shattered again, with his face contorting into a nearly demonic scowl. "What did you say?"

"You're out," Peter said bluntly. "We don't have to tolerate your attitude, if you're going to be like this."

A loud, nasally cackle silenced the workshop as Dmitry rolled up his blueprints, wiping away tears. "Your loss then, imbeciles!"

"I'll send the email out to Mr. Possible right now," Ron said, reaching into his bag for his laptop. He looked up, seeing Kim in sweatpants and a green and gold tee shirt with her backpack over her shoulder. "Oh, hey Kim! I thought you had practice until the game."

"It doesn't start until three," Kim said, sitting next to Ron and pulling out her own laptop. "I figured I'd get a headstart on my paper due next week. What are you all up to?"

"The three of us are working on our engineering project," Gil said, "hey, Kim."

"Hi, Gil," Kim said, looking up and nearly jumping at the bouquet of flowers in her face. She pushed past them and stared in aggravation at the rude student. "What is this?"

Dmitry cleared his throat. "I _was_ in your friends' project group, but it's not what I want to speak to you about right now." Dmitry gave the same proposal to Kim as he gave to Vivian, merely changing the lab connection with Vivian to his fanboyish admiration of her. "Albeit, a man would do your job far better."

"Excuse me?" Kim said in shock.

"That's besides the point," Dmitry said, "how about it? I can meet you after the silly game."

"Absolutely not," Kim said, catching his flicker of a psychotic frown. "I don't care what it took you to ask me that, you don't get to talk to anyone like that, especially people you want to bother to try to be your girlfriend. I'm going with Ron and Peter anyway, as friends."

"I'm going?" Peter said.

"Isn't Bonnie taking you?" Kim asked.

"She is?!" Peter exclaimed.

Dmitry's scowl widened into a burning but silent rage, snatching his flowers back. "You'll wish you had never rejected me, Kim Possible, Peter Parker!" he said, turning in a huff and stomping out of the workshop. " _Everyone_ will regret it!"

"What a jerk," Kim said, putting in her earbuds and working through her frustration.

Ron sighed in belief, but noticed Peter staring behind Dmitry as he left. "It's not worth it, man."

Peter looked down and back up at Ron, opening his laptop again. "You're right, Ron. Thanks, guys. Let's discuss our ideas now, before somebody else decides to break up from the band. Do either of you guys want to go first?"

Ron and Gil looked at each other and down at their blueprints. "Uh," Ron said with a nervous smile, "I know we can't _technically_ do this, but I designed a naco automatic folder. It can do other stuff though."

Gil looked over Ron's device, confused by the oblong structure of the machine. "Like what?"

Ron sighed. "Fold… burritos…"

* * *

The air was cool that night over the stadium where thousands of fans decked in green and gold on one half of the stands shouted at the other half in red and white. Peter was squished in the student section in the front between two beefy superfans who looked way too old to be in the student section holding up a "G" and an "O" for students down the line to spell "MIST" in spray paint on white slabs. He watched Kim direct the other cheerleaders in a flashy and impressive routine, forming towers and pyramids, throwing Kim and Bonnie up into the air for them to flip and twirl in the air in between every play of the night. "MIST, 35, Stanford, 38, but if our guys in green push any further into enemy territory for this last play, then a bunch of California boys are going to go home crying!" MIST's short but loud hype man said, getting the crowds excited as the two teams moved back over the three yard line, Stanford protecting their win with everything they had.

"Blue 42! Set!" Brick shouted, glaring into the eyes of the defense across the line. "Hike!"

He caught the snapback as his running back and wide receiver dashed into the endzone. Brick whipped it across the sky with all his might before getting tackled, but with a man in green catching it in the endzone, it was a worthy sacrifice. "Touchdown!" the hype man shouted, receiving a roar of energy and excitement in response. The student section began to proudly sing the fight song over Stanford's jeers and hisses, with MIST's football team clapping each other on the back.

Brick pulled the lineman that tackled him to his feet and pat him on the back, raising his helmet for a victory shout.

The stands began to shuffle toward the exits, with Peter wading through the people climbing over each other to get to the parking lot first. "People are stepping on each other's backs, Jesus!" he exclaimed, clawing his way out. He ran home to change and the campus was buzzing, with every fraternity and sorority jumping on buses to go out on the town on Saturday night. Peter was prepared for both events he predicted, slipping his Spider-Man suit under a sleek and classy blue Tom Ford dinner suit with the top button undone of his white, buttoned down shirt. He stepped out again, stuffing his mask in his pocket and strolling out. "Ron," Peter said to the blond agent in the fitting black tuxedo. "Great job tonight!"

"Thanks!" Ron said, turning to him with a smile. Rufus hissed at him from Ron's suit pocket. "After today I didn't think I'd be up for more, but," Ron chuckled, "they have a chocolate fountain. I gotta get me some of that, you know."

"Of course, of course," Peter said, "unless there is a melted substance falling down an oddly shaped glass thing, it's not a party." He knocked on Kim and Bonnie's door, leaning against the wall and checking his watch. "I just hope we don't get any of it on us."

"Don't jinx it," Ron said sternly, "this is my only suit so I have to treat it with respect- and there's gum on this spot of the wall."

"I have an ice pack in my room, I'll get that right off."

"You don't have to do that," Ron said, seeing him already halfway there. He moved fairly quickly, returning with the ice pack before Ron could finish his statement. "But thanks."

Peter crouched by his pants leg, rubbing the gum until it was solid and cracking. "Don't worry about it, it happens all the time to me. I think you'd know a little better than me about keeping uniforms in their best shape."

"You wear one a lot?" Ron said.

Peter stood up, clapping him on the shoulder and walking back to his room to put the ice pack away. "I worked for the Daily Bugle back in high school as a photographer to provide for my aunt and I," he said, coming back and leaning against the wall again. "I was at every socialite event, just the guy behind the camera and occasionally the accidental valet, so I had to learn to get comfortable wearing a suit."

Ron laughed nervously. "Yeah, uh, I used to wear a bright yellow uniform for Bueno Nacho," he said, "kept that bad boy pristine the whole time."

Peter smiled. "You and Kim really like that place, don't you?"

That wasn't the response Ron expected. "It was our spot from elementary school and up," he said, "just a place to chill from all the running, jumping, fighting, explosions- working there gave me a reason to force myself to decompress from it all."

"It's important to have a place like that…"

"Thank you!" Ron exclaimed. "I've been trying to tell Kim that we should have an official base there or something-"

"...in moderation," Peter said, making Ron throw up his hands.

"I was just starting to like you too," Ron said, "you sound a lot like her."

"Speaking of Kim," Peter said, reading his watch. "7:37," the watch read. "They start letting people in at eight, right?" Peter said, turning toward the girls' door as it opened. Bonnie walked out first, wearing an elegant but fierce and confident knee-length white dress that complimented her figure and curves with a pearl necklace and classy white sandals with a beige purse on her shoulder.

"Hurry up, Kim, we're going to miss the bus," Bonnie said with her usual scowl, turning to Peter and approving his attire with an interested smile.

"You look gorgeous," Peter said, making Ron and Kim want to puke.

"Coming on a bit strong there, double-o seven?" Bonnie said, playfully pulling at his relaxed but charming suit that his shoulders, chest, and arms filled out quite well.

"There wasn't a way saying 'you look nice' without saying the basic 'you look nice' that was going to come off naturally, so," Peter said with finger guns, "sticking with that."

"Sorry guys," Kim said, "you'll have to meet us there. The coach wants all of cheer together for photos."

Peter's jaw went slack at the red-headed, green eyed bombshell with in her jet black, sleek, sleeveless, knee-high dress, red bracelets and earrings with red high-heeled dress sandals. Her black, winged eyeliner made her bright green eyes especially vibrant tonight. Ron cleared his throat, flustered a little by her as well. "No problem," he said, punching Peter in the arm. "I bet we'll get there before you do."

Bonnie scoffed. "How?"

Peter and Ron looked at each other in confusion and back to her. "The, uh, the bus?" Peter said.

"Then we should get going," Ron said, waving to the girls as he and Peter headed for the stairs. "See you there!" He tapped Peter on the shoulder. "You know where we're going, right?"

"The Acari Center, yeah," Peter said.

"Do you have a Google Maps or something?" Ron asked.

Peter tapped the side of his own head. "iPhone 3GS would take too long, it was easier just to memorize it."

"Showoff," Ron joked as they stepped outside and started their walk. "We could get a Lyft and you can just Venmo me back."

Peter stopped cold. "That would be easier." They reached the curb of the residential square and Ron called the Lyft, sliding into the back seat. They started driving, looking out at the bustling and celebrating campus feeling a part of the grand community they had the privilege to be in, but something more sinister caught Ron's eye as they ventured deeper into the city.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Ron said, pointing at one of the high rise apartment buildings. Six men in black, concealing clothing all filed into a broken balcony door on the third story of one of the buildings, with the last man pulling up the maintenance ladder left by an irresponsible scaffolding worker. "Somebody's breaking in, Peter! We're gonna have to stop here!"

Peter looked out of his window, seeing the shattered sliding glass window for himself. "I don't know how much help I'll be…"

"Stay here or come," Ron said, opening the car door, "but you won't want to be around if they decide they aren't going to come quietly."

"I'll be emotional support, then," Peter said, going to make sure Ron didn't get killed, "but don't wait up!"

Ron rolled out of the car and dashed across the street, looking back and seeing Peter right behind him. His eyes narrowed with the suspicion returning yet again at his willingness to help. Maybe he could stomp out a couple of goons and the randomly fleeting thought that his friend was also his enemy in the red and blue spandex suit. He ran into the alleyway in between the apartment building and another one just like it, running onto the wall and leaping off to grab the window ledge on the first story. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a grappling hook, latching onto the base of the ladder and yanking. The ladder gave him five more feet until it was just above his head, but with a small push back and a hop up he was pulling himself onto the ladder. He looked down at his partner staring up from below. "Get up here, Pete! We don't have much time!"

"I'm going to let the security manager know what's going on, you and Kim gave me your communicator contacts so he'll have to let me in!" Peter shouted, going around the front instead.

Spider-Man would have copied Ron, Kim's partner thought, or maybe he wouldn't have, to further hide his identity. Either way, Ron kept climbing the ladder, scaling it and leaping over the balcony loudly and proudly. "Hey, bub!" Ron shouted as he stepped into the living room of the moderate apartment, scaring the six men who were ransacking the living room. "You wanna commit crime in my city, friend? You gotta go through me first, pals!"

The six burly, seedy looking men dropped their loot, turning toward Ron and chuckling. "Where's Kim?" one asked with a deep, raspy voice, "without her, aren't you kinda useless?"

Ron laughed. "Come on, me? Against you six lousy guys? You gotta be kidding, come on, try it!"

The tallest thief darted forward with a crowbar and Ron ducked the strike, returning with a hook to the jaw that sent him spinning.

"I said come on!" Ron said, ducking another swing and slipping Rufus into the criminal's pants leg. "I've got somewhere to be!" He turned toward the third thug and gasped, seeing the end of a barrel between his eyes.

"We're going to be fashionably late," Peter said from out of nowhere, punching the gunman in the temple before he could pull the trigger, "the cops will be here in five minutes."

"How'd you get up here?" Ron asked, kicking the fourth robber in the chest.

"I did exactly what I said," Peter said, "but the door wouldn't open. I had to get on the second floor balcony so I could use the ladder."

Another thug ran at Peter but he was ready, dodging the strike sloppily and throwing all of his weight into a punch. Ron watched it carefully, seeing its total difference from Spider-Man's quick and precise strikes. Peter wasn't a fighter, but he had just saved Ron's life regardless. Rufus subdued the seventh thief into a corner and the two students in suits stood over him, knocking him out together with a twin punch. Rufus wasn't done fighting yet, leaping onto Peter's hand and biting it. "Rufus! No! Bad naked mole rat!"

"Ouch! Ron, get him off me!"

"Sorry, Pete!" Ron said, putting him securely in his suit pocket again. "Rufus gets a little too into it sometimes. Are you okay?"

Peter looked down at the bite mark, shaking out the pain. "Yeah, I'm fine." Police sirens could be heard around the building. "That's our cue to go, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you do that whole 'Batman' thing where you beat up the bad guys then leave before the police show up?" Peter asked.

"No," Ron said plainly, "no, we don't."

" _Can we_ do the thing where we beat up the bad guys then leave before the police show up?"

"Hands in the air!" a policeman shouted as he kicked the door to the apartment in. Four officers showed up too late, putting down their guns at Ron's appearance.

"What are you doing?" Ron said.

"Putting up my hands," Peter said with his hands up. "They said to put up our hands."

"We're on their side, Peter!" Ron exclaimed, imagining that this was how it must have felt when Kim was showing him the ropes.

"I'm from New York, man!" Peter shouted. "They're never on our side!"

"They're all yours," Ron said, giving the cops a thumb up.

"Thanks, Ron," the lead officer said, "you can tell your friend to put down his hands now. Where's Kim?"

"Actually, Peter and I are about to go meet her right now."

"What, is this guy the new member of Team Possible?"

Ron looked over at Peter with an approving grin. "He's my new sidekick. He's not ready for the big leagues just yet, but in time he'll be a crime fighting machine."

"Sidekick?" Peter said under his breath, following him out of the building. They called another Lyft, resuming their journey to the party.

It was quiet in the car, with Peter fixing his suit. "I wanted to thank you for what you did back there," Ron said.

Peter fastened his glasses to his face. "Don't worry about it."

"No, really," Ron said. "You saved my life. I know I seem like I don't really want to hang out with you, I'm just awkward around new people, I guess. Sorry about that."

"No apology needed," Peter said, "let's just get there, if not we'll be cleaning up the streets all night."

"Thanks, Pete!"

"It's Peter," Peter corrected, bringing another tense and awkward silence into the car.

The driver turned up the music as Peter checked his phone, texting the girls that they were on their way. The rest of the drive was quiet, both boys relieved as they pulled into a line of cars around the block of a convention center with a balcony overlooking the entire city leading into what Peter presumed was the party considering that their classmates were in and out of the balcony space. "This is fine, thank you," Ron said, stepping out with Peter.

An overwhelming sense of dread hit Peter hard as he made his way into the convention lobby that made his fingertips tingle and his legs want to run out from under him, stopping with Ron as the elevator opened. "I'll see you upstairs. I have to take care of something."

"Are you okay? Did you get hit?" Ron said as the doors closed.

Peter darted to the staircase where it was cooler with a draft from upstairs, taking a moment to breathe. He pulled out his special phone, waiting for it to ring, or for Fury to call him, anything, something. He slapped himself in the face, looking out the window and seeing the perfectly peaceful city bustling by itself. Maybe it was his Spidey Senses missing New York, but he pulled himself together. He rushed up the stairs and opened the doors, stepping into a wide convention room with tall, red walls and golden chandeliers over a wide dance floor with a DJ on the opposite end of the buffet and drinks. Students and alumni alike talked, ate, drank, and danced with each other, catching up with old friends and making new ones. "Peter!" Kim shouted from across the room. "We're over here!"

Peter slipped through the dance floor, meeting Kim, Ron, and Monique by the food. "These glasses don't work," he said dryly.

"Ron told us about how you helped him stop the ten robbers earlier," Kim said, "he said you were a pretty good boxer too."

"No, no," he laughed. "I was inspired by you guys. After saving my life so many times, I figured I'd return the favor by saving someone else. Nobody was home though, so I think I still owe you a couple- Ron even called me his 'sidekick.'"

"You think you can handle it?" Monique asked. "They are superheroes, after all. Well, maybe not Ron." Kim laughed as Monique walked toward the balcony, looking over at Ron who relaxed with a cup of punch.

"No, what happened tonight was a matter of circumstance," Peter said, "I wouldn't be much help in the long run."

"Are you being humble, or are you begging the question?" Kim said with a smirk. "I know training when I see it, Peter. I get that you're never supposed to tell people you can defend yourself because then you'll be inviting trouble, but Ron and I have considered a trio before, and I think you made quite the impression on both of us tonight."

Ron watched them talk closely, trying to not seem as if he was eavesdropping by digging into a cupcake.

"I can't do what you do," Peter said. "I'd only get in the way."

"We won't know that for sure until we test it experimentally, isn't that what you tell everyone else when conducting case studies?" Kim said. "Or are you just scared?"

Peter laughed. "You got me there," he said, "but no. The secret agent superhero thing, it just isn't me."

The DJ started playing "Finesse" and every student jumped, rushing to the dance floor. "I'll let you think about it." She brushed some of her long, red hair out from her face, looking toward the dancefloor. "Do you dance?"

Peter chuckled again, merely taking a sip of his drink. "Yes, he does," Bonnie said from behind, slipping between them and pulling him away. "Come on, Kim, they'll only play this song twenty times tonight."

Ron turned a little green at the slight disappointment on Kim's face but hid it with a smile. "Don't let her get to you, Kim. Let's have some fun, yeah?" he said, following her to the dancefloor anyway.

"I spoke too soon, you can't either," Bonnie said, dancing with him in the middle of the crowd singing along to the song.

"It's not about whether you can or you can't," Peter said, "it's about having a good time."

"Even when it makes you look like an idiot?" she teased.

" _Especially_ when it makes you look like an idiot," he said. He beckoned Kim and Ron over to them as they pushed their way through the crowd, "but if you can do it without looking like one, it gives me hope."

"Oh, really?" she laughed, playfully slapping his arm. "You're embarrassing yourself. You'll never reach my level of superstardom."

"Are you gonna stop me, then?" Peter said, continuing his awkward shuffle. "What do you see, Bonnie?"

"I see a confident guy doing too much for everyone and too little for himself," Bonnie said, "two internships, who knows how many classes, four clubs, it's a surprise that you make time for us to hang out at all."

"Are you okay, Bonnie? That's the nicest thing you've said to me ever since I've known you," Peter said, making her roll her eyes, "and you're one to talk, every time I see you, you're running on five hours max of sleep, but I know that once your name's everywhere, it'll all be worth it. You know, I was actually kinda surprised you wanted me to study with you in the first place, we'd always end up not studying, though."

Bonnie laughed at his aloofness as the song changed, causing another uproar among the students. "It's getting hot, I'm going to the balcony!" Bonnie shouted over the music, pulling Peter through the crowds just as Ron and Kim caught up.

They stepped out onto the cool balcony, the fall breeze feeling nice on them as they leaned against the railing looking out into the city. "I'll grab you a drink, I'll be right-"

"Peter," Bonnie cut in, pulling him back over to the railing. "I've been thinking."

Bonnie looked concerned. Peter leaned against the balcony railing.

"I know that we're both extremely busy, you have _other things_ in your life that you need to take care of, I get that," she said, playing with her hair nervously, "but, I like hanging out with you and I know you feel the same way, I was wondering if from here on out it could be different between us."

Peter's eyes widened, staying against the railing with a mixture of shock and confusion.

"Don't look at me like that," Bonnie said, "if I had waited for you to ask, we would have graduated by now."

"I… really don't know what to say, Bonnie." Peter blushed, looking down with a nervous laugh. "Yes, we make time for each other, and I really like hanging out with you," he said, all the hairs on the back of his neck standing up from the feeling earlier creeping back, "but a relationship, a serious one… it's not something I think I'm looking for right now."

"You're taking this way too seriously, but I can appreciate you being upfront about it," Bonnie said, having a feeling as to why he hesitated. Other guys, with a less valid excuse, would have been a coward by toying with her emotions. "We can take it slow for now, until we can figure out where we're headed." She put her hand on his, looking into his eyes with a confident smirk. "At least give it, give us, a shot. Like you said, we already make time for each other, what would change is just how we spend it."

"Bonnie, I really don't think this is the best idea," Peter said, his Spidey Senses tingling up and down his spine, "I can't explain it, to you, right now."

"Is that all?" she said, cocking an eyebrow. "You can talk to me, Peter. We can work through it together, but I have to know what's stopping us right now, it's only fair."

Peter felt a sharp ringing in his ears and his head snapped toward the edge of the railing, looking out over the city at a small jetstream of a quick, gliding green figure moving dangerously quick toward them. "Sorry, Bonnie," Peter said, his voice suddenly stern and authoritative like the man she knew he was, "but we're going to have to talk about this later."

"Why? What's-" Bonnie saw the urgency in his face and turned toward the gliding figure. "I'll get Kim!"

Peter darted over to the older couple sharing drinks on the balcony. "Sorry, but the balcony is closed," he said.

"And why is that?" the older woman asked.

Peter watched the figure loop around the building several times, wanting desperately to spring toward it head-on. "Reconstruction," he said.

"What's the sitch?" Kim asked while Ron shuffled the old couple inside. The party stopped cold with a demonic, shrill cackle cracking the sky, with Kim, Ron, Bonnie, and Peter staring up at the humanoid in green and black flying through the air on a rocket-powered glider.

"What the hell is that?" Ron said in awe.

The figure looped around, charging straight toward the balcony with a small, round object flashing orange and green. Kim gasped. "Get back, now!" she shouted as the mysterious cretin whipped the device just below the balcony. The building rocked from the power contained in the device and the party devolved into chaos, the perfect conditions for a second grenade to strike just above the balcony. A chunk of the cement above them fell.

"Sorry about this," Peter told two curious students staring at the figure, whipping them back into the room quickly as the chunk would have landed on their heads.

Bonnie screamed as the balcony gave way below her, crumbling beneath her feet and forcing her to hang onto the cracking railing that looked like it was going to break at any moment. She looked down at the long drop below her, knowing that one slip would end it all. "Somebody help me!"

Kim, Peter, and Ron dashed toward her, ducking and dodging cement chunks from above from other bombs going off all around the top of the building. Kim fired a grappling line around Bonnie's arm. "Let go, Bonnie! Hold onto the line instead, we won't let you fall!" Peter leaned forward over a small but widening gap anyway with surprising stability, taking Bonnie's arm and yanking her back just as the entire railing broke off to fall all the way down and shatter. "Nice save, Peter," Kim said, "but Ron and I will take it from here. Ron, get Peter and everyone else out of the building." Her eyes narrowed, glaring at the thing taunting them from the sky. "I'll take him on myself."

Ron nodded. "I'll get back here as soon as I can," he said, herding Peter and his classmates toward the stairs. "Go on, go on! No one take the elevators, cover your heads in case of falling debris and get out before you look for anybody else, this is not a drill, people! Move!" He tapped his watch, bringing up a map displaying hundreds of heat signatures, those of everyone in the building. "No one's upstairs, Kim, I'd say you're being called out!"

"Well he's certainly got my attention!" Kim growled.

Peter heard Kim's battle cry from above. He needed to get away, fast.

"You're alright?" Peter said, holding Bonnie's shoulders. "Nothing sprained?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she said, noticing his eyes darting around the stairwell watching everyone else. "Thank you, Peter."

"Don't mention it," he said quickly, helping Ron push everyone out of the building as Ron ran back upstairs to help Kim. "You need to leave, now!"

"Don't mention it?" Bonnie said earnestly.

Peter took off faster than she had ever seen a man run before.

"Where are you going?" Bonnie shouted behind him.

"To get help!" Peter shouted back, rushing into an alleyway several blocks away. He pulled open his suit, putting Peter away with Spider-Man exiting the alleyway out the other side with his dinner suit underneath it. Peter fastened his mask to his face and took to the sky with a web line on a nearby building, swinging into action as Kim dodged bombs left and right on the roof.

"Who are you?" Kim shouted at it, rushing toward the edge of the building with her grappling hooks ready.

"I'm surprised you haven't already guessed," it said with a deep, rumbling voice, beckoning her forward as Kim launched off the side of the building fearlessly.

Kim threw the grappling hook but the unknown assailant caught it.

"But I'm afraid that's too late now," it continued, chopping the line with a green dagger. Kim gasped with a sudden and silent fear, suddenly free-falling with only a twenty story drop between her and the ground. "Bye bye, Kim Possible!"

"Kim!" Ron shouted, running toward the edge of the balcony to catch her. A piece of the balcony below, however, had different plans. Ron yelped as his foot slipped through a crack and he fell, knocking himself out cold face first.

"I'm going to save you in the name of mutant _evil!_ " Spider-Man exclaimed, catching Kim and tackling her onto the dance floor. "I guess you can say we're panicking at the disco right now."

"I was going to thank you," Kim said, rolling to her feet side by side with the web-slinger, "but now I want to hurt you both."

"That's how you know it's good," Spider-Man said, watching their opponent cruise in on the glider and hop off.

"Hello, my dear," it said. It was a humanoid of average height, with their face concealed by a green and black helmet and mask. They wore black and green spandex that showed their athletic but slender build under thin but tough armor plates with reptilian ridges going up from their green, glowing goggles to the back of their head. The only part of the person underneath the mask was their pale green skin and black lipstick. "You look nice, were you in the middle of something?"

"No, in fact I was just clearing out my schedule for an edgy creep on a glider to mess up my night," Kim shot back, "did I overdress?"

"It's perfect for a funeral," it said, "are you ready for yours?"

"Who are you?" Kim asked it. "And what do you want?"

Its hands roared to life with a black and green energy that surged throughout the suit. "I am the Green Goblin," it said, "and I want respect from a community that has shunned me, tossed me aside, and stepped on my back to get ahead for too long!" She pointed at Kim, growing a sparking green saber from her hand.

Kim put up her fists, ready to fight. "Why not pick on your community instead of everyone else, Goblin?"

Green Goblin spun their blade around, crouching into stance. "Everybody's afraid of you," she said, "by taking you down, anybody who will rear their ugly heads in your absence will fall in line." She snapped her fingers and the glider took off on its own with two gatling gun pointed right at Peter's head, firing hundreds of long rounds at the Spider who dodged them with inhuman speed. "You might want to worry about your sidekick, Kim. I want to keep one of you alive to spread the message."

"I've got him," Spider-Man said, vaulting over the glider and darting toward the crumbling balcony. "Come on, Ron…" he grumbled under his breath, picking him up just before the balcony gave way.

The Green Goblin and Kim circled each other for a moment, waiting for the other fighter to move. "You know what?" Green Goblin said, dispelling the green energy sword with a wave of a hand. "I won't need this to beat you."

Kim blinked and her opponent was already ten feet in the air with a fist cocked back. Kim gasped and flipped back as the strike crushed the floor with ease, leaving black and green scorch marks in the small crater left by it. Kim was immediately put on the defensive, dodging burning strikes left and right by the relentless opponent who moved with a robotic speed. Kim took a kick to the stomach that doubled her over and sent her flying into a table. "My mom's going to kill me about this dress," she said, seeing a large chunk of cheesecake staining her dress. She whipped the cake platter at Green Goblin and the plate shattered without the slightest effect.

"That dress is the least of your concerns!" Green Goblin shouted, leaping into the air again and whipping four green and black bat-like throwing stars that spun on their own.

Kim flipped back, her heels glowing red as she landed on the wall. Goblin charged with a laugh, punching up at the agent and chasing her up the wall. They clashed halfway up the length of the room with Kim getting pushed higher until her back hit the ceiling. She dodged a punch that went straight through the ceiling. She jumped with all her strength, landing on the chandelier and turning toward her opponent again. "Is that all you've got?"

Green Goblin chuckled, turning into a green and black blur and appearing on the other side of the room with impeccable speed. "I haven't even started yet, girl," the Goblin taunted, following the sounds of crystal crashing on the ground.

Kim yelped as the chandelier fell out from underneath her and she grappled onto the second chandelier. Another bat star cut the chandelier line and Kim took a hard fall to a table, rolling underneath it on a shoulder and arm she knew were going to be bruised badly in the morning. "Wade," she said in her kimmunicator, wincing with every explosion on adjacent tables. "Give me some info about a guy called _Green Goblin_ , fast!"

"What the hell is going on out there?" Betty answered instead with worry. Kim sighed, remembering she had taken over _all_ communications. "And where's Ron?"

"Knocked out," Kim said, "Spider-Man took him to safety though-"

"Now there's two of them?" Betty exclaimed with a grimace. "Are they working together?"

"No, no, Spider-Man's fighting this guy with us, not every time we see him I'm going to fight-"

"I'm sending a team in," Betty interjected. "Now they're blowing up buildings and putting innocents in the crosshairs, this is unacceptable and the fact that they're not in my hands right now is your fault."

Kim didn't have time to argue right now. "I need information on Green Goblin, please-"

"What you need is to remember who you're talking to," Betty hissed, cutting off the signal.

Kim rolled out from under the table as a green and black fist went through it. "There you are! I thought I was going to have to break every table in the building!"

Kim barely blocked a backhanded strike that slid her on her back. Green Goblin pinned her to the floor with one hand around her neck, raising her other hand for the killing blow. "I'm stronger than you, faster than you, better than you in every possible way," Green Goblin spat, "and I'm gonna let the whole world know what it's like crossing me, through you!" Kim desperately tried to roll, but the Goblin's grip was unbreakable. "Goodbye, Kim Possible!"

A red and blue flash knocked Green Goblin aside and the glider waited for her off the balcony's edge. "Sorry to keep you waiting," Spider-Man said, pulling Kim to her feet, "too many people wanted to stick around, with a couple of your friends from the Global Injustice Network keeping me busy. Are you injured?"

"Don't worry about me," Kim said, trying to ignore the pain in her shoulder. "We have to stop the Goblin."

"Give it a rest for now, I'll take care of him," Spider-Man said, watching the Green Goblin rise on the glider. "The Green Goblin and I go way back."

"Then you know who he is?" Kim said.

"I knew who he was," Spider-Man said, tightening his fists and rushing forward. "This man is an impostor!"

"Come on, Spider-Man!" Green Goblin roared, throwing four more bat stars at him.

Spider-Man flipped sideways to dodge them, taking two slices to the right shoulder and one to the left thigh. He growled from the pain and shot a web back, catching them before they even got close to Kim and whipping them back at the Goblin. They burst in the net, letting both heroes know that this guy was out for serious blood. Spider-Man darted forward again and lunged through the air, knocking him off the glider with a harrowing spin kick.

Green Goblin hit the ground hard and rolled to his feet, parting the curious masses with a siren scream that slammed Spider-Man into the stairs leading up to the building. "You hit much harder than I thought, bug!"

The glider circled the forming crowd and flew low toward the center, with every man and woman diving out of the way except for one little boy stunned in fear. "Harold, no!" his mother screamed.

"Come on, Harold!" Spider-Man said, dodging several punches from the Goblin and rolling between his legs. Spider-Man lunged for the kid and rolled, feeling a gash open on his back as the bottom of the glider scraped over him. He hopped to his feet, giving the kid to his mother. "Stay in school, don't do drugs," he said with a thumb up, diving with a battle cry back toward the Goblin.

Green Goblin caught a punch from Peter, chuckling to himself from the quick power struggle between them. "My, my, you've been holding back on me!" he said, kicking him in the chest and sending him rolling down the street. The Goblin flipped back onto the glider and followed him, firing at his heels with every bullet making the Spider run faster. "Then again, we're both new to town, aren't we? I'll forgive you for just testing the waters!"

Spider-Man made a jump to swing onto the rooftops and Green Goblin caught him by the back of the head, slamming it into the window of a highrise over and over. "Consider that as a warning!" he said, connecting an elbow strike with his head and whipping around, hanging onto the glider to land several hard knee strikes into his armored stomach. A headbutt dazed him, for once, whoever this person was hit as hard as some of his other villains from back home. He fell off the glider and shook the dizziness away, firing a webline onto the back of the glider as he flew away.

"We'll meet again, Spider-Man!" Green Goblin shouted as a spotlight from a helicopter labeled GJN shined down on them from above.

"Put your hands in the air, both of you!" the pilot ordered, firing immediately after.

"Up yours, Betty!" Goblin shouted, blasting away on a rocket faster than the helicopter could keep up with.

"Hey! That's not nice!" Spider-Man shouted from below.

"I have what I need from you, bug!" he shouted, throwing a bomb down. "Now scram!"

"This bug bites," Spider-Man said, whipping the bomb up in the air and launching himself toward him with a flying kick. "And it bites _hard!_ " They rolled onto a skyscraper's rooftop and clashed again, with the Goblin's hard MMA and forceful strikes fought against the Spider's fluidity and sudden bursts of power.

"I'll take care of this infestation right now," Goblin said, punching him off the side of the building with a hit straight to the nose.

"You'll need a little more than _RAID_ to take me out," Spider-Man said, bending back with a flip kick to Goblin's mouth that caused the modulator inside his mask to spark. Peter crawled onto a window and gasped, flipping back as the glider crashed into the storage floor of the highrise they made their battleground. Spider-Man fired two weblines at the glider and used it to yank himself into the window, rolling into a few boxes. "I'd recommend _OFF!_ " he said. "It's an oil, it really keeps bugs gone for hours, I think Walgreens is having a sale since it's the off-season?"

Green Goblin laughed and rushed into the storage room, throwing bat razors left and right. "I was thinking more along the lines of a bug bomb!" The Goblin said with an alluring and sultry woman's voice that Peter knew he recognized.

"Shego?" Peter said in shock.

"Nothing gets past you, huh?" she chuckled, standing on the glider with her arms folded.

"Why are you doing this?" Spider-Man demanded. "Do you realize what could have happened if any part of your publicity stunt went wrong?"

Shego laughed condescendingly. "I knew exactly how you and Kim were going to pick up the slack, what I didn't expect was you being so good at your job."

Spider-Man wanted to scoff. "I've done this since I was fifteen," he said, "fought against the worst, fought with the best, that suit of yours might make you strong but you're going to have to try a little harder to put me down. You're not the first Green Goblin that has tangled themselves into my web."

"Stop with the Spider puns!" Shego said.

"No!" Peter shouted back. "Not until you tell me what you hope to gain by doing what you're doing now!"

Shego pointed to the ceiling, hearing the helicopters and agents in the distance closing in. "You hear that?" she said. "I don't know how it is in the east, but out here, we're hunted, and Kim Possible is the big gun. Drakken and I had a fight, we broke up, now I have to fight for my respect again by eliminating my longest standing obstacle."

"You won't earn their respect if they fear you," Spider-Man said bitterly.

"You're doing such a great job, aren't you?" Shego taunted with an uppity tone. "Middleton's favorites try to take you down every chance they get, the GJN wastes millions hunting you down, the press demonizes you, so why try?"

"It's not about how people see you, but only how you see yourself," Peter said. "Drakken and his friends, even if you win, will only plot your downfall."

"It's bigger than them, Spidey," she said, "the GJN and the Possibles are enemies to us both, even you can admit that. They've been after me and my entire family ever since I was a kid, and put them out of commission."

They both looked up, hearing the helicopter touchdown directly above them.

"I thought about it a lot, after I took this suit and left Drakken to his own devices," she said, "I knew you'd show up today and give me one hell of a fight, but I don't want to fight you." She could sense that he knew where she was going with a sly smirk. "I want to fight _them_. We can take them down together, with the GJN's technology backing us up there's no telling what we could accomplish."

"Not like this," Spider-Man said, "the GJN's a problem, but not one that can be solved like this. There's a lot more than you know out there, even if you do succeed you won't enjoy it for long."

"I'll let you think about it," she said, "you and I are more alike than you realize, it'd be a shame if we let them drive us apart. When you showed up, they started to mobilize on a level I had never seen before. This could be a tipping point, we just have to figure out which way they're going to fall." She hopped off the glider and walked up to him, pulling her hand back and returning the four bat stars buzzing around Spider-Man's head to her utility belt. She pressed her hand against his chest and her other hand against his cheek, the taboo of the entire situation making him melt. "Just don't be under it when it does."

A flashlight shined into the dark storage room and Shego quickly rolled up his mask to his nose, kissing him deeply for the agents flooding the room to see. It was so bad, Peter thought, breaking the kiss and staring at her in bewildered anger as he slipped the mask down again, but it felt so good. "I knew it, they're together!" one agent shouted. "Take them out!"

Spider-Man glared at her through the mask, flipping over the firing squad with her in his arms and swinging away with the glider following behind them. "You're so painfully predictable," Shego said as they landed in an alleyway. "You might be a better agent, but I'll always be one step ahead of you."

"I'm going to deal with the GJN my way," Spider-Man stated, "a long, bloody, drawn out war between us and them is only going to end in people not responsible for it getting hurt."

"Are you that naive?" she said, almost laughing in disbelief. "Do you not know how GJN operates? They're a private military, Spider-Man."

"It's inevitable," Spider-Man said, "but minimizing casualties is the highest priority if you want success."

Shego sighed as Peter let her down. "I wish it could be like that, Spidey. I'll give you some time to think about my invitation, I'll be contacting you soon regardless. Watch your back-" She hopped onto her glider. "-and your chest."

Peter looked down, seeing a flashing orange bomb on his chest. He ripped it off with a patch of his costume with it, whipping it into a dumpster as it exploded. Spider-Man looked back to the sky, watching her leave silently on the glider before vanishing with a click of a button on the suit. He smirked, pulling out his phone and flicking to a map, seeing her location on a small spider-emblem that followed her through the city. "You're good, but you're definitely no Norman Osborn."

"There you are!" Kim shouted from behind, rushing into the alleyway. "Where did the Green Goblin go?"

"She planted a bomb on my chest," Spider-Man said, "by the time I was able to get it off, she got away."

Kim looked at the dumpster that had half of it missing and scorched then looked back at the vigilante's chest. "You let her get away."

"They were going to kill her," Spider-Man said, "the GJN would have found her in jail and until you tell me what they plan on doing to her, saving her life was my top priority."

"She endangered hundreds tonight!" Kim shouted. "She nearly killed my partner, me, even you, for that matter- if anything had gone wrong, if we had missed a single step, someone would have died!"

"That's why I did what I did," Spider-Man said. "I tried talking her down, figuring her out, but she didn't feel like talking."

"You said you two have history," Kim said, "how am I supposed to know you're not on the same side?"

"Do you have any idea," Spider-Man said bitterly, "of the _weight_ the name of Green Goblin carries? What it's done to me? This person stumbled upon it with no connection to the man who murdered hundreds on the East Coast. If it had been the same man, we would be having a very different conversation right now, since that one is-"

"Well if this one decides to aim lower at the ground next time, the blood will be on your hands," Kim said. "You should have delivered her to me, I would have kept the Director from doing anymore than what the law allows. This is exactly why I can't fully trust you, but I really want to- I know you're doing what you think is right. You save me and my friends' lives, then you go and do this."

"Until you can assure me that you have that kind of power to stop her," Spider-Man said, "I'm going to have to keep them out of harm's way just like anybody else."

"I know about S.H.I.E.L.D," she blurted out, silencing him. "I don't know why you're here or what S.H.I.E.L.D is planning, but if it puts any of my citizens in danger, I won't hesitate to stop it and you."

Spider-Man leaned against the alley wall, hearing the helicopters buzz overhead. "You know that if that were the case, it would have happened by now," he said, pulling out a pen and one of his business cards. "I'm on your side. I moved from New York, so my friendly neighborhood had to move as well. I instigated nothing, so maybe you should ask your people why they're so quick to take us out if they aren't looking for a fight." He handed his card to her. "In the meantime, I'll always be available if you need backup. You don't have to make a choice right now, but just keep it between us."

She read what he wrote on the card. "These are coordinates… what is this?"

"An invitation to get to know us before you decide what side you're on, if you're still a free agent, that is," he said. "I didn't know about the GJN when I moved here, I'm guessing you didn't know about us until recently either. Meet me there at three o'clock, tomorrow."

Kim looked down at the card with her duty to justice and the people clashing with her duty to Betty and the GJN, neither she wanted to let down.

"Tell nobody," Spider-Man said. "I'm really sticking my neck out, since I don't want you or Ron in the crossfire of something you're not responsible for, moreover us in each other's crosshairs."

"Why can't Ron go?" Kim asked, the isolation acting as a little voice in the back of her head to tell her that this was a trap.

"He's far more dedicated to the GJN's crusade than you are," Peter said, "plainly, I can trust you not to relay everything back to Betty. Don't prove me wrong."

Ron wouldn't like it, but this was an opportunity she couldn't pass up. "Fair enough," she said. "I'll see you there." She looked up, finding him already gone. "Why does he do that?" she said aggravatedly to herself, looking down and seeing his pen. "You left your pen!" she called out, jumping back as a webline shot down, taking it up into the air.

"Thanks!" he shouted back, leaving her alone and staring up at the night sky more torn than she had ever been. He didn't stop swinging until he was a block from campus, his Spidey Senses tingling with an even greater intensity than just before the attack. He changed back into his suit and nearly sprinted all the way back to his room, slamming the door shut and panting hard.

"Peter," Bonnie said, sitting at the edge of his bed and making him nearly jump onto the ceiling. She had changed from her white dress to a pink tee shirt and gray yoga pants. "I was so worried about you, after you saved me back there you just vanished!"

"I called the cops and ran back inside to try to help," Peter said, doing his best to sound calm, "but Spider-Man was already there. It didn't stop me from getting cut pretty badly from falling debris, just my luck."

"Yeah, what a coincidence," Bonnie said knowing exactly what he was doing, walking up to him and wiping away some of the blood under his nose with her thumb. "You're still bleeding. Come to my room, I have a first aid kit there."

"Let me get changed first," Peter said, "if you don't mind."

"Sorry," she chuckled, leaning against the wall outside the room with the door closed.

Peter hurriedly closed the blinds and took off the suit, leaving him with a bloodied Spider-Man from the neck down. He looked in his closet mirror to inspect the damage, feeling the sharp sting in his back as he slid a red tee shirt over his cut body. He exchanged his uniform pants and shoes for black shorts and flips flops, stepping out.

"Where are your glasses?" she pressed, knowing he didn't need them.

"Broken," Peter said, "the building punched me in the face, called me a nerd a couple of times, got a bunch of other buildings to point and laugh at me, I'm actually pretty glad you weren't there to see it."

Bonnie pulled Peter into her room, sitting on the bed next to her desk. "Sit," she said.

"I'm not a dog," Peter said, sitting anyway.

"No, but you're stubborn and you think you know everything," Bonnie teased, treating the small cuts and scrapes on his face.

"Like attracts like," Peter said, "maybe that's why we get along so well."

She sat next to him, crossing her legs toward him. "Which is exactly why we'd work," Bonnie said, kissing his cheek and touching his back. "Unless there's someone else?"

Peter winced from the pain, arching his back away from her hand. "There's no one else right now," he said. "I'm just going through a lot right now. I don't want to burden you with that."

"Your back," Bonnie said, "what happened?"

"Nothing," Peter said quickly.

"Take it off, Peter," Bonnie said, backing Peter into a corner as they slapped at each other's arms.

"No, it's fine-"

"I'm trying to help you! Oh my god!" Bonnie exclaimed, pulling off the shirt anyway. Peter was chiseled and built like a bodybuilder with a broad chest and rock-hard abs to her surprise, but realizing what kind of a workout he was doing as a superhero it lessened the shock. Still, it was most impressive and she bit back the urge to whistle.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, um," she said, clearing her throat. "Turn around."

"You really don't have to-"

"You saved my life, the least I can do is put alcohol on some cotton and sting you with it."

Peter grudgingly turned around.

"How did that happen, Peter?" she gasped, making him squirm every time she touched it with the cleansing wipe. "What did you actually do back there, Peter?"

"I fell," he lied, "landed on a piece of-"

"There was no cut in your suit, _Peter_ ," Bonnie said.

"I took off the jacket before going back for more people," he said, "it was constricting."

"I call bull," Bonnie said, putting bandages over the deepest parts of the jagged but ultimately shallow gash. "What were you really doing back there?"

"Excuse me?"

"Did I stutter?" she said sassily. "This isn't the first time you've mysteriously disappeared after heroically running away from the scene, only to come back as if you walked away from the fight."

"What are you implying, Bonnie?" Peter said.

"Is it the reason why we can't be together?" Bonnie said.

Peter turned around and Bonnie met his lips with hers. Peter wanted to fight it, but the warm, cherry taste of her lips overrode his sense of reason long enough for his eyes to open again, laying down pinned by his close friend. His eyes met hers in a mix of wild emotions. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said breathily, kissing her again suddenly as if it was simply him on autopilot with Spider-Man banging his head against the dashboard in the passenger's seat.

"Sure you don't," she said, staring into his wide eyes dreamily. "You never thought tonight would end up like this, did you?"

"There's a concert happening downtown next weekend," he said, "a friend of mine from back home owed me a favor, so I have two tickets."

Bonnie kissed him tenderly again and blinked, finding Peter on top of her. Peter sat up, leaning against the wall. She sat up, resting her head on his shoulder. "Whose concert?"

Peter put his shirt on again. "The Weekend."

Bonnie's jaw dropped. "Tickets for that were sold out seven months ago!"

"Do you want to go?" Peter asked.

"Is it a date?" Bonnie asked him.

Peter headed toward the door. "Yes," he said, seeing her smirk in victory. "I'll pick you up a few hours before. We can get dinner before."

"What happened to not being sure?" Bonnie taunted, wrapping him in a hug from the front and looking up. "You're taller than I thought."

"You convinced me to give us a shot, what can I say," Peter said, with a small voice in the back of his mind desperately telling him to shut up as he kissed her passionately again.

"Face it, tiger," she said, stopping him just before he left. "You just hit the jackpot."

"Goodnight, Bonnie," Peter said, returning to his room with his heart racing for a different reason.

* * *

"My patience is growing thin," Betty scolded Kim and Ron in her GJN headquarters office. "Not only did you let the Green Goblin escape, but you let Spider-Man escape with her!"

"Director, miss," Ron said, "we-"

"After looking at the video footage of what happened tonight, however," she said, "the only reason you failed to defeat them was because you lacked superpowers."

"Well," Kim started. "That's definitely a drawback, but I think-"

"The latest intel is that S.H.I.E.L.D is sending a squad to pick up the jade idol retrieved several weeks ago in Denver at fifteen hundred hours tomorrow, moreover that Tony Stark is going to be there himself. I want you there with a team to intercept, and I think you'll be better prepared."

Suddenly, the small business card in Kim's pocket felt heavy. She couldn't tell Spider-Man either, nor warn against it without giving away their collaboration. The panels in the walls opened and two cases emerged with white and blue spandex, full body jumpsuits.

"Whoa!" Ron laughed. "Check it out, Kim! Are these super suits?"

"These will allow you to keep up with Deadpool, by his own admission, of course, integrated with all the strength, speed, reflexes, and powers of a certain mutant labeled on the suits," Betty said. "You'll receive them before you embark on the mission tomorrow, but be aware that there are no more excuses from this point on. If you fail to bring me Spider-Man tomorrow, there will be no words to describe what I'll do to you, because then _I'll know_ one of you has been letting him get away on purpose." Ron and Kim looked at each other nervously. "Do we understand?"

Kim and Ron saluted, Ron being a tad more gung-ho about it than Kim. They walked down the intricate and complex corridors, ending up at the hangar bay for a helicopter ride home. "That's gonna be sweet!" Ron said. "Superpowers are going to be awesome, right Kim?"

She got on the helicopter without a word, burying her face in her hands from distress.

"Kim, are you okay?" Ron asked with great concern.

Kim shook her head. "I just have a really bad headache right now, that's all," she said, failing to see a good ending coming from this regardless of the choice she makes. "I'm sure it'll get better in the morning."

* * *

 **LONGEST CHAPTER FOR LONGEST WAIT**

 **WHAT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO READING?**

 **-WILL PETER FIGURE OUT THAT BONNIE KNOWS HE'S SPIDER-MAN?**

 **-WILL KIM TELL SPIDER-MAN THAT THE GJN IS EXPECTING THEM?**

 **-ARE Y'ALL EXCITED TO SEE TONY STARK?**

 **-WILL SPIDER-MAN SURVIVE THE SURPRISE VISIT FROM THE GJN?**

 **-WHAT SIDE WILL KIM CHOOSE, IF SHE CHOOSES ONE AT ALL?**

 **-WILL SHEGO CONTACT SPIDER-MAN AGAIN? DOES SHE KNOW WHAT KIND OF BATTLE SHE'S IN FOR?**

 **-WHAT DID YOU THINK OF OUR NEW GREEN GOBLIN? DID WE WITNESS THE NEW ORIGIN OF ANOTHER SPIDEY VILLAIN?**

 **-WHAT OTHER MARVEL CHARACTERS DO YOU WANT TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE?**

 **REVIEW/PM!**

 **P.S. YES, SPIDEY/MARVEL GOT NERFED WHILE EVERYBODY ELSE GOT BUFFED (THE SUITS), BUT REMEMBER THAT PETER IS ALMOST ALWAYS HOLDING BACK. HE'LL SHOW JUST HOW POWERFUL HE REALLY IS SOON ENOUGH.**


	12. Chapter 12

**OWN NOTHING**

 **ALSO I'M GOING TO BE FIXING A FEW THINGS IN EARLIER CHAPTERS SO IF YOU GET A BUNCH OF NOTIFICATIONS (DO YOU GET UPDATED WHEN A CHAPTER GETS CHANGED?) JUST IGNORE THEM UNTIL THE NEXT NEW CHAPTER IS UPLOADED. I NOTICED SOME PRETTY NASTY GRAMMAR ERRORS. YUCK. ALSO, I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID ABOUT THIS STORY BEFORE. I'M HAVING A LOT OF FUN WRITING THIS ONE. MIGHT MAKE IT LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED. WE'LL SEE. ENJOYYYY**

* * *

Peter couldn't sleep. The same overwhelming urge to run from earlier that night kept him up. Today was Sunday, the day of the drop for that monkey totem burying a hole in his closet. He needed to get rid of it. He turned over toward the clock on the center dresser. "Three thirty," he said under the rapid clicking of Gil's XBOX controller, rolling out of bed and throwing on some sweatpants.

"Three thirty?" Gil said, his eyes glued to the screen of his television. "That's an hour earlier than you usually get up. You okay?"

Peter nodded, putting on his glasses. "I guess I'm still a little shell shocked from yesterday," he said, "nearly getting killed by a supervillain, suddenly dating someone who I had no idea liked me in that way, there's just a lot on my mind."

"Wait, wait," Gil said, pausing the game. "I was right about Bonnie?"

Peter shook his head, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. "Yeah, I guess. I'll be working on the engineering project, if you want to join. It's due this Friday, in case you forgot."

"I'll pick up the slack later today," Gil said, "we're doing your nanotech thing, right?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "I have the model and blueprints almost done. I have clearance to the engineering building through Vivian, so we could probably just build it ourselves tomorrow and just spend the rest of the week coding, coding, coding."

Gil paused again, turning to him with tired shock on his face. "You know that the schematic is the project, right? He doesn't want us to actually build the thing."

"Yeah, of course," Peter said, "I'm saying we can run it virtually, like the Google AI software. It'll be a little hard to envision, and all of us have worked too hard to not get an A because we couldn't show the class a viable product."

"Bro, chill," Gil chuckled. "All we need to do is some diagnostics on the virtual model to make sure it's physically possible, we don't need to make it perfect. We're also not selling it."

"I have no chill," Peter said, making him laugh, "and if I can't sleep, you and Ron suffer."

"Man, go run a lap or something, tire yourself out," Gil said, waving him off.

"So I'll crash face first in the sidewalk and some ravenous grad student will steal our project?" Peter said deadpan. "Not likely. I'll be in the lounge."

"Cool cool," Gil yawned.

Peter closed the door, walking to the stairwell and feeling a strong draft from above. "Interesting," he said, hopping up the flight of stairs to the door to the roof wedged open by a black grappling hook. He leaned his head out of the door, seeing Kim in her mission uniform sitting on the edge of the building with her laptop. He secured the hook and stepped out. "Strange study spot, Kim."

Kim turned tiredly toward him. Her hair was all over her head too, her intelligent green eyes open but exhausted. "Hey Peter," she sighed, turning back to her laptop obviously burdened.

"Mind if I join you?" Peter asked, walking over to the edge.

"You might fall," Kim warned, putting her hand out protectively.

"I'm alright, thanks," Peter said, sitting next to her with his legs dangling in the air. He pulled out his laptop, opening it up to a blank page on one half of the screen and a 3D model of an ant on the other. "You couldn't sleep either?"

"I haven't been able to, not for awhile," Kim said with a yawn, finishing a page of her essay and clicking through at least twenty tabs on her browser. "It's hotter in the lounge. The wind up here, it's nice. It's quiet. How about you?"

"I got a bit shaken up from last night, I guess," Peter said, "I saw the door open so I got curious. I figured that I should just finish my team's engineering project, get as much as I could done. Where's Ron?"

Kim seemed to flicker a frown at his name. "Out like a light," she said. "He took a pretty nasty hit to the head yesterday from Green Goblin's attack." She ran her hands through her hair in stress, letting out another sigh before going back to her essay. "I wasn't going to bother him right now. He needs the rest."

Peter looked her up and down. She was always so together, on top of herself and anything that came her way. She was disheveled. "And you don't?"

Kim closed her laptop halfway, looking out into the campus and seeing her rising city in the near distance. "Yesterday just felt different," she said, "it's been different ever since… _he_ got here."

Peter made his blank essay tab smaller and smaller until it was fighting for existence in the corner of his screen. "Would you want to talk about it?" he asked, maximizing his model.

Kim opened her laptop again, typing out another line of her essay with bursts of words as sporadic and cluttered as her own thoughts. "I don't think so, not right now," she said softly. She erased the entire line. Kim's eyes focused on the screen, her paper on the downfall of puppet states staring back at her waiting for more.

Peter wasn't going to push her. He simply nodded, knowing her position fairly well.

"It's just," she started, "yesterday, I think, put just how much things have spiraled out of control in perception." She closed her laptop again, laying back and staring up at the stars. "Ron could have been seriously injured or worse. It never gets like that when I'm in charge. I'm always a step ahead, always at the top of my game. I didn't think about it before I checked him out, but after I saw it, I thought about everything that has happened to me and around me starting from two months ago. I'm losing control, and it's not because I'm not trying my best, I just feel like my best hasn't been enough to protect the people I care about." She turned to him, looking for assurance. "It's not black and white anymore," she said, "I thought I knew what that meant, what it felt like, but what I feel is right goes against everything I thought was right before, and I don't know if I trust myself to make the right decision anymore. I realized how wide of a safety net I had with..." He wasn't allowed to hear everything. "...my situation, that if I messed up, if I fell, I'd be okay." She sat up again, putting her head in her hands and rubbing her tired eyes. "It's slipping out from under me, Peter, and this time I don't know where I'll land if I fall."

Peter put his laptop next to him, looking out into the city that he now protected as well. "With great power," he said, "comes great responsibility."

Kim looked at him to say that it was obvious.

"What you should do with that responsibility may not always be clear," Peter said, "sometimes the right thing to do doesn't always feel like it, and that's okay. What you have to ask yourself is if you can live with that decision to stand against your own volition. Nobody else can do that for you. People on all sides will shout at you, overwhelm you until you convince yourself that you're wrong. You can't let them do that, Kim. Once they do, you've relinquished your responsibility, your great power is no longer your own." Peter realized he was probably coming on as preachy. "Not that you don't already know this, of course. I'm not trying to lecture."

Kim stayed quiet for a moment, pondering his words that mimicked her own thoughts telling her to push through into the unknown anyway. It no longer made her feel sad, with bitterness and anger forming a deep pit in her stomach and a cold streak up her spine. "I was worried you'd say that," she said, sitting up again. "I've never been so conflicted before. For once, I can't tell myself everything's going to be okay, because I know it might not be."

"When the time comes," Peter said with a stern but supportive voice, "you need to trust in yourself enough to make the right decision. You're _the_ Kim Possible. You'll know."

Kim looked at him solemnly. "Kim Possible couldn't stop Ron from getting killed yesterday," she said with disdain, "but I guess just sitting here isn't going to change that."

"Yesterday was-" Painful. Dangerous. Exciting. "-surprising, to say the least. How were you supposed to know that a supervillain was going to jump the party?"

"I knew it," Kim said, "I always know it. I just wasn't prepared for it this time." She grabbed her grappling hook from the door and notched it on the edge of the building. "It won't happen, _ever_ again."

"Where are you going?" Peter asked.

"I'm going to clean up for about an hour," she said, "then try to get some sleep."

"Are you sure you'll be okay?"

Kim nodded. "I think I just need to blow off some steam, clear my head," she said, repelling off the dorm wall.

Peter watched her run off campus and into the night, his Spider Sense making him ask himself if he was going to get through this as well.

* * *

"These bags are _so_ disgusting," Bonnie said with disdain, passing boxes of empty clear bags over to Ron who tossed them in the back of a truck labeled "La Clinica" from the back of a small storage room behind a large hospital. "Why did you drag me out here to do this at _eight in the morning on a_ _ **weekend**_ , Peter?"

Peter chuckled, handing a similar box to Kim. "Would it kill you to be a decent person for an hour?" Kim scolded. "We're helping people who don't have parents with government level medical insurance, Bonnie."

"Oh snap, Rufus!" Ron whispered to his rodent friend who helped push the stacks of bags into the empty box Ron was holding.

"Don't be jealous your weirdo parents are still stuck with Blue Cross," Bonnie said with a sassy hair flip, "I was asking why he has me in these ugly scrubs."

"I think it looks good on you," Peter laughed, switching to a pile of sterilized syringes and putting them in the last box. "If anything, this will look great on your resume."

"I guess," Bonnie sighed, following Peter out of the warehouse and back into the white van. It was a sunny Sunday morning, the mid to late-Fall air cool and crisp with a wind that ruffled the four volunteers' blue scrubs. "Then why are _you_ in those ugly scrubs?"

Peter sat on a crate as the van made its way from the hospital in the heart of downtown headed toward the campus. "This organization helped Aunt May get medical attention while I was in between jobs back in high school," he said, "I figured I'd give back while I'm here."

"See, B?" Kim said. "Not everyone is completely self-serving."

"You're not even in a science major," Bonnie spat, "so why are you and the loser here?"

"It's called 'volunteering,'" Ron said, "I'm pretty sure they don't discriminate!"

"I also figured it'd be a good way for us to hang out," Peter said, "the second round of midterms is coming up, and I'd rather be doing this every Sunday than be stuck in the library again."

The rest of the van groaned. "Don't remind us about midterms, bro!" Ron whined, turning to Kim. "Your parents are out to kill us!"

"You'll be fine, Ron," Kim said, "just start studying two weeks in advance instead of two days this time, okay?"

"I pulled a B minus, okay?" Ron said, puffing out his chest. "The wham bam cram method works."

"Oof," Bonnie said with a cringe.

"You started crying after we left engineering," Peter said dryly.

"Those were the tears of a warrior!" Ron shouted.

"We should try to do _something_ tonight," Peter said, glancing at Kim. "I can meet later though, probably after five or six."

"We're booked until then too," Kim said while pointing at Ron, her smile fading at that thought. "I'll text you though, if you'll actually answer this time."

"You we're sitting right next to me," Peter said.

"The professor was right there!"

"So you do something _more_ noticeable?"

"Sorry to burst your friendship bubble, Kim," Bonnie said with a smug smirk, "but Peter and I have plans tonight."

"We do?" Peter said, catching Bonnie's glare.

"You're meeting my parents," she said bluntly, watching his face go white.

"So soon?" Peter said.

"Both of my sisters are in town," she said, "I figured tonight would be a better night than any so you can get approved."

" _Get approved_ ," Peter said with a scoff.

"You're no football star," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck, "but as long as you don't act like a total nerd, you'll be fine."

"Meeting parents, plans, that awkward and forced body contact-" Ron gasped.

"Peter, you didn't," Kim said, repulsed as if he was another one of her villains.

"That's right, Kim," Bonnie said victoriously, "it happened while you were off getting your butt kicked by Green Goblin or whatever. You jealous?"

"What did you do to Peter?" Kim exclaimed, pointing at the young man. "Did she hurt you? Ron, do something!"

Ron lunged across the van, slapping Peter across the face. "You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy her ego, not revive it! You were to bring balance to our friend group, not leave it in darkness!"

" _I HATE YOU!_ " Peter shouted back in a pained groan, silencing the van.

Ron relented, sitting back on his crate while Rufus hissed. "You were my brother, Peter. I loved you."

Kim watched them with a blank stare. "What is happening?"

"Are you going to the con next weekend?" Ron asked excitedly.

"I can't," Peter said, "tag me in the pictures though, if they have those double sided lightsabers I can Venmo you for the-"

"None of that, nada, not while I'm around," Bonnie snapped.

"At least wait until we're out of the van," Kim said, rolling her eyes before setting them back on Peter, "but seriously were you sick?"

The van stopped and the back doors opened to a small clinic where mainly homeless people waited in line for doctors to call them back. Peter hefted most of the boxes on his shoulders. "I'll tell you later," he chuckled. "I can't stay for too long. I'm meeting a friend at 12."

"Who?" Bonnie asked intrusively.

"My research partner, it's for a tech talk " Peter said, "I can get you guys tickets if you'd be interested."

"I don't think we'll have time," Kim said.

"I just don't want to go," Bonnie said dryly.

Peter shrugged. "I'll tag you in the famous guy selfie, I guess."

* * *

Three hours moved along fairly quickly, with Peter and Kim setting the example for Ron and Bonnie. Peter changed in the bathroom, stepping out in a preppy but casual outfit. He clapped Ron on the shoulder and waved to the girls, parting ways toward the bus station. "See you guys later, see you tonight, Bonnie!"

Peter let his smile fade and his pace quicken as he hefted his backpack carrying the dreaded idol to the bus stop. He checked his watch and called Vivian. "Peter!" her cheery voice said. "Are you excited for the talk today?"

"Oh yeah," Peter said, shuffling onto the strange, musky beast of a ride. "I was calling just to say that I'm on my way. I didn't want you to get there before me and think that I ghosted you."

"Well thanks for letting me know," she said, "any idea of when I should start saving seats?"

"I should get there right on time, don't worry about saving seats." Peter felt another buzz in his pocket. "I have to go, but I can't wait to not have you shout at me about balancing a centrifuge for an hour and a half."

Vivian laughed. "I'll put a centrifuge in your seat if you don't hurry up. Bye!"

Peter hung up, quickly pulling out his other buzzing device, the discreet, black, unmarked flip phone used to talk in areas where he usually didn't have anyone else listening in. He hid it under his other phone, as if someone had called right as he hung up. He looked around for an open seat, sitting right in the front facing the inside of the bus by the radio. "Hey dad! How's it going?"

"I take it you're on your way?" Nick Fury asked quietly, a tad annoyed by the cheeriness in his voice.

"Yeah, I'll be there in about an hour," Peter said, keeping a passive eye on everyone else entering the bus. "I'm meeting with a friend beforehand, just so you know."

"See you there," Nick said, hanging up the call.

Peter let out a deep breath, putting his phone away and leaning back in his seat. The ride was longer than what an hour felt like, the closer he got to Denver the more anxious and restless he became. He didn't show it to any watchful eye, but he started to feel the source of the danger he felt building up over the past few weeks closing in. The bus stopped about a block away from a large convention center with a line of cars waiting to work their way in a mile away. "Thanks," Peter told the driver, stepping out onto the crowded sidewalk. The idol seemed to weigh a ton on his back as he pushed through people left and right, walking right past the long line to a pair of sentinels acting as bodyguards in front of the wide glass double doors. He vanished into a crowd headed around the back for the entrance on the other side of the building. Peter slipped out of the crowd into a small side door to the convention lobby where hundreds of tech-minded men and women talked amongst each other in front of the auditorium doors where more sentinels guarded them. They were humanoid robots, seven feet of gleaming gray steel, red glowing slits for eyes, and faces stuck in a permanent scowl from the way the face armor connected to the chin plate. Peter had fought hundreds of opponents during his tenure, but even now he wouldn't dare try to take one on by himself. He pushed through the crowds with a purpose and his phone to his ear. "Vivian, I'm here. Where are you?"

"Turn around," Vivian said.

"You're not there," Peter said.

"Just do it," she insisted.

Peter relented, looking over his shoulder.

"Made you look," she chuckled. "No, seriously, I'm by the doors going into the hall."

Peter moved through the crowds, stopping just in front of the red rope in between them and the door. He leaned forward, looking left and right until he saw the brilliant blonde. "There you are," he said, waving until she spotted him back. He slid through the people packing to rush the seats as soon as they lifted the ropes, eventually standing shoulder to shoulder with his lab partner. "I didn't realize Mr. Stark was this popular out here."

"Why not?" Vivian asked. "He's probably the most famous tech giant on the planet, he holds patents on at least three quarters of the tools in our lab."

"Trust me, it's far more 'in your face' in New York," Peter said.

"He's still holding back," she said, staring at one of the sentinels, "Jarvis out here is just the warm up act."

She did her homework. She must have been using an unconventional browser to learn about that right under the GJN's fat nose, or wasn't seen as enough of a threat to them. She was too smart for the second one. "You're definitely right about that," Peter said. "I can't wait to see what he has in store for us today."

"Anyone with advance tickets, please step forward," the sentinels said in unison with a friendly, British accent. They parted the ropes, with some people testing their luck only to get presented with a very unfriendly glare from the robots. Peter flashed his ticket.

"I don't have one," Vivian said.

"It's fine," Peter said with a smile, bringing her forward anyway. He walked up to the sentinel, giving it a wink as its scanner read his ticket.

"Ah yes," Jarvis said under the commotion in the crowd, "Mister Stark's missed you."

Peter feigned a gasp. "He has feelings?"

"Yes, and annoyance is one of them, kid," a cocky and smooth American man's voice said through the mask instead. "Get in here."

The doors opened to a red auditorium that was well lit with a wide stage that looked like it was more meant for an orchestra performance than a presentation. Similar sentinels like the ones outside flew back and forth toward the back of the stage on rocket propulsion, fixing the lights and centering them on the three men standing on the stage.

"Test the mics again, Jarvis," the cocky voice from before said, pointing to the robots working the sound booth, "we're not starting until my voice makes the Wizard of Oz look like a mid-pubescent smartass with a megaphone."

"I was that kid for awhile, wasn't I?" Peter said, grinning up at his old mentor on stage to catch his attention. Vivian followed behind, eager yet nervous to meet her idol. He was a man in his late thirties of average height and fair skin with short, neat but easy going black haircut and blue eyes that were playful but genius at the same time. He sported a trimmed goatee with red tinted glasses, a combination with his black suit that screamed wealth, power, and a matching confidence in using them.

"Yeah, just without the megaphone, get up here so I can show Jarvis that I'm not mean to all children," he said with a smirk, gesturing him to come up onto the stage. Vivian looked around, watching the other advance ticket holders take their seats save for two seats right in the center of the front row. They were the only two up there, she realized, leading to her entire face turning red.

"I have a friend who's been dying to meet you," Peter said, pulling her up on stage. "She's a genius bioengineer, she even brought you a present!"

"OhIwouldn'tcallitapresentIdon'tknowit'sjust-" Vivian's eyes widened at the man of the hour's extended hand.

"Is she okay?" he asked.

Vivian carefully accepted the handshake, her limp hand nearly getting crushed from his firm, hardy grip. "N-nervous," she gasped.

"Well, nervous, I'm Tony Stark," he said with a grin. "Just take a deep breath. I'm just your average billionaire- is it the shades?" He looked up at Peter. "It's the shades, isn't it? Pepper told me they were too much."

"Vivian, show him what you made," Peter said, standing beside her in case she fainted. Tony did his best to keep his smile, but with her mumbling, he was losing his patience fast.

"No, really, is she okay?" Tony asked again.

"I-I just wanted to say thank you, Doctor Stark," Vivian managed to get out, trying her best to look him in the eye, "your story, your inventions, all of it inspired me to become a scientist to change the world." She shakily reached into her purse, pulling out the bright device that nearly blinded everyone on stage. "I knew you were coming awhile back, so I built this. It's- it's not industry level yet, but I'm your biggest fan, and I hoped you'd appreciate it."

Tony took it earnestly in his hand, glancing down at his chest and back at the device. "Where did you get the blueprints for it?"

"I wrote out all the schematics myself," she said, beaming with nervous pride. "I had to infer a lot from its function before building it, I don't think you made anything like this accessible on the internet."

Tony felt the intricate grooves on the back and raised his eyebrows, looking at his two associates to make sure he wasn't just seeing things. This took work, and was incredibly well done. "I'm impressed," he said to make her melt, looking at the back once before putting it in his pocket. Peter scoffed, knowing that he would have said much more if the cameras weren't on him. "I'm glad to have touched a few minds of this generation," he said, shooting a joking glare at Peter, "maybe one day you'll be up here instead of me." He winked at her with a Hollywood grin. "Keep tinkering. At your age, others might tell you to build up to what's in my chest, well I say sometimes it's better to run before you can walk."

"I'm so glad you like it, thank you so-"

"Here, you know what," Tony said, gesturing one of his robots down from the lights and tossing it his phone. He gave her a friendly side hug, looking toward the camera. "Get a picture with me and Vivica, this is going to replace the photo of her in braces winning the science fair back in high school for her profile picture, let's go for the most likes, okay?"

"It's Vivi-"

"Isn't this way better than a selfie?" Tony said, chuckling to himself. "Peter! Get a picture of the robot taking a picture of us, it'll be funny."

"Why don't I do that in a selfie?" Peter said.

Tony's smile faded, staring at Peter as if he had three heads. "Why would you do that?" He shook his head. "Okay, I don't care anymore- Happy, take a picture of the kid doing what I just asked."

One of the two men accompanying him onstage was a tall, heavyset man with fair skin, short but curly brown hair, and tired brown eyes wearing a black suit. He simply sighed, pulling out his phone and aiming it at Peter.

"Luke!" Tony called out to the other man on stage. He held a different aire than the rest, while Tony exuded power from his mannerisms, this man had power just in the way he stood. He was young, maybe a year or two older than Peter and Vivian, with dark brown skin like midnight and striking amber eyes that seemed to glow fiercely under the lights. He was tall and muscular under his black turtleneck and jeans, with short, curly black hair and a short and neatly trimmed beard and goatee. "Extend the chain by one more guy."

"I do not work for you," he said with a rich, authoritative Xhosa accent that crushed Tony's momentum.

"Please?" Tony insisted.

Luke rolled his eyes, pulling out a sleek, ultra thin smartphone. "Happy, please move in so I can get all of you in the shot."

"Do you make me act polite out of spite?" Tony asked.

Vivian grinned from ear to ear as all the cameras went off at once. "I cannot thank you enough, Doctor Stark."

"Actually yes, you can," Tony said quickly, "but whatever makes you happy. Take a seat."

Vivian wanted to skip to her seat, but settled for giggling like a schoolgirl. "He's a bit eccentric," Peter said, "but how did you like-"

"He said I impressed him," Vivian said, melting in her seat. "I can die happy."

"Not while Doctor Possible's around," Peter said, "she'll have a seance right in the middle of the lab to ask you why she didn't receive her two week notice."

"Thank you so much for doing this," she said graciously, "let me treat you to Boba, dinner, something!"

"Don't worry about it," Peter said, keeping his eye on Luke as he swaggered backstage next to Stark. He had only ever seen him once before, he certainly didn't remember seeing him with SHIELD. The lights around the auditorium began to dim, with AC/DC's "Back in Black" playing over the speakers as the doors opened like floodgates for the eager engineers pouring in. Luke and Peter locked eyes, with Peter receiving a deceivingly subtle smirk before he faded into the shadows. "Oh, here we go," he said, smiling at Vivian's excitement as the sentinels started flying around Tony.

"It feels so _good_ to be back!" Tony said with a laugh to the applause, clicking his heels once and floating from red soles on the bottom of his dress shoes. "Jarvis, let's remind them who's talking."

"Of course, Mister Stark," Jarvis said. Some of the sentinels guarding the doors flew over the entranced masses, spinning around the billionaire until he was lost among steel.

"I don't think that's loud enough, Denver!" he shouted, the sentinels parting and flanking behind him to reveal a sight that drove the crowds absolutely wild.

Tony gave a charismatic grin to the crowd, floating in a red and gold suit of armor with the facemask tilted up like a knight's visor. It looked like the sentinel bots, but his suit was not as bulky and a tad shorter. It still shined brightly under the lights, fit with a triangular arc reactor that appeared to sink right into the center of his chest. "I love it when he does that," Vivian sighed, " _so_ cool. I wonder how advanced that AI interface is under his mask!"

Tony landed on his feet in the armor, gesturing the crowd to quiet down. "The last time we talked, I told you about inspiration, I told you how to get into the business, but today I'm here for probably the most important part of the job— ethics. Take this suit, for example. I didn't just up and build it because I could. This had a purpose with the consequences that lingered in the back of my head, knowing that every military, every mercenary, every wrong hand, would grasp at what I had achieved. All of you, whatever field you're in, will deal with this same conundrum. My conundrum was a bit _special_ , mind you-" He paused for the crowd to laugh. "-but let's use it as an example. Imagine you're me, as awesome as that is, and think to yourself what you would do in the following situation."

As Tony presented the crowd with his captivating ethical problem, something else caught the young hero's eye. A glint of black, silver, and purple zipped from the front of the stage to the back, so small that it was unseen by everyone but him. "I'll be back," he whispered, standing up and awkwardly shuffling past people's legs.

Vivian looked at him with a hint of disappointment. "He's missing the best part," she whispered to herself.

Peter slipped out of the auditorium and let his instinct guide him through the empty center and up an escalator to a dimmed hall of conference rooms. He leaned up against one of the walls, staring at the opposite side of the hall as Luke's amber eyes shined out from the shadows he had webbed himself in. "They got you to work with them too," Peter said.

"Now that some of my rightful acquisitions aren't where they belong," he said bitterly, "I'm holding them accountable for letting it fall into the wrong hands."

Peter's face softened into silent surprise. "It's yours?"

He nodded. "I'll explain later. After this show, head to the second pickup spot."

Peter glanced around.

"Don't worry, Peter," Luke said, knocking on the air as if there was an invisible glass wall. "No one can hear us, at least not our real conversation. Head to Denver International Airport. The pickup will be waiting for you in a private terminal. Make sure you aren't followed."

"As always," Peter said. " _Your Highness_."

"Now hurry up," Luke said, walking through the invisible wall and leading Peter down the stairs. "Your girlfriend is waiting."

"She's not my girlfriend," Peter said behind him with a red blush, opening the door and sneaking his way back to his seat. Vivian hurriedly patted his seat.

"Where were you?" Vivian whispered.

"Phone call," Peter said, "it was important."

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's just, I'm meeting up with a friend visiting after this… what did I miss?"

"I'll tell you later, just sit down," she said, half-yanking him back to his seat.

The rest of the presentation went by smoothly, with Tony getting a standing ovation at the end. The crowds shuffled out, with Peter and Vivian gasping for breath as soon as they broke free outside. "I think I can taste someone else's breath," Peter said with disgust.

"Don't focus on that," Vivian said, "what did you think?"

"He delivered, as always," Peter laughed, "he could have had another robot or two."

"Or ten, but that's just me-" Vivian heard the screeching of the bus at the bus stop. "We should probably hurry on, unless we want to wait here and count everybody else who has to play musical chairs with the mysteriously sticky seat. What are you doing tonight? I was planning on getting together with a couple friends and studying, maybe getting some boba for a break."

Peter chuckled. "You know something, Vivian?" he said. "You sound just like him, when your mind is racing. I'm down to study after I meet my friend, I have another plan tonight so I wouldn't be able to join you until late, and I'd probably just be left in your brainy dust."

Vivian rolled her eyes with a smirk. "I won't humiliate you too much then. Who's your friend?"

"An old friend from New York, he comes in every now and again to ski in Aspen so I'm picking him up," Peter said. "When I get back to campus, I'll introduce you to him. I think you'll like him."

"You're not coming back now?" she said, glancing at the bus filling up fairly quickly.

Peter looked at his phone. "He said he just touched down."

"I'll go with you, keep you company while you're waiting for him," she said. "How are you picking him up without a car?"

"There's a zipcar service at the airport," Peter said, "and you don't have to go, I don't know how long we'll be sitting in traffic. Besides, you might want to get on the bus now before you lose at sticky musical chairs."

"You sure you'll be okay?" she said.

"I'm from Queens," Peter said, "I can handle Aspen."

"I don't know, Peter," Vivian said, walking toward the bus, "skier gangs might just disorient you long enough to rob you."

"No, Vivian," Peter said, waving at her with a smile. " _I_ am the danger."

Vivian laughed, walking up the stairs. "Sorry, lady," the bus driver said, pointing his thumb back. "We're full."

Vivian looked in the bus, seeing every spot for sitting and standing entirely occupied. "Oh, well, that's okay," she said with a hint of disappointment as she stepped off the bus. "When is the next one?"

"In two hours," he said uncaringly, closing the doors and peeling off. Vivian was left with her mouth open, staring for a moment in disbelief at where the bus was.

"Two… hours…" she stammered, turning around and expecting to see Peter. "Peter!" she called out, receiving no reply. "Peter?" she said again, pulling out her cellphone and texting him aggravatedly. "Why does he always do that?"

* * *

Kim and Ron sat across from each other in the helicopter dropping them and their mercenary squad off to where the jade idol pickup was reported to be. They wore sleek battle jumpsuits in white with glowing blue stripes down their arms and legs and white gloves and boots with black magnet-like pads on the soles and palms. It was colder up there, the overcast, gray skies over the airport providing an ugly backdrop for what was about to transpire. "You okay, Kim?" Ron asked, feeling a bit nervous himself with Kraven loading his hunting rifle right next to him.

"Yeah," she said detachedly over Deadpool's pleasant humming, "I'm just exhausted. It's been a long couple of days."

"Tired? No," Bullseye said, "nerves are more like it." He scoffed. "I hope you don't get in the way."

"Cut her some slack," Deadpool said, "everyone's first time is always awkward."

Winter Soldier rolled his eyes. "They shouldn't be here. We don't have room to mess up here, you all honestly think he's going to be alone?"

"Of course not," Kraven said, "but they should not worry. It is an honor to hunt such an elusive and rewarding prey for their first outing. Betty has faith in them, so for now I say we set our own doubts aside."

"The stone cold killer does have a heart," Omega Red said, "but Bullseye's right. That bug's been crawling up our asses for too long. I wouldn't want to stomp you or Ron under the same boot, not that I'd lose any sleep over it."

"Approaching the drop," the pilot announced, overlooking a terminal with a wide window looking out toward the runway and taxi areas where passenger and commercial flights went in and out on the busy weekend. "I'll be on standby in terminal four."

The five mercenaries jumped out, landing on the airstrip and receding under the main terminal to the more private taxi areas. Kim followed reluctantly after Ron, the card in her pocket now digging into her thigh. "Spider-Man seems to know all these guys," Ron said, "it looks like the Director isn't the only one who wants him captured, right?"

Kraven scoffed. " _Capture_."

"Yeah, that's it," Ron said, "we're going to nab him this time!"

The other men laughed, but Kim clearly looked disturbed. "I don't think that's what they're here for, Ron."

Ron's laughter faded at the graveness in her face. "Come on, Kim, the Director wouldn't do that. You and I both know that for a fact."

She didn't know that, but she would never tell him that. "Get out of sight," Bullseye said, loading a sniper rifle and perching himself on two crates aimed at a tall wire fence. "If all goes well, it'll only take one shot."

Ron's face went white, seeing him put on a silencer and load the longest, shiniest round he had ever seen. "That's a stun round, right?"

"Get down," Kim said, pulling Ron into hiding behind some of the crates with the rest of the team.

"One spider, one black backpack, one round," Bullseye said with a sadistic glee, lining up the shot. Bullseye smirked as the familiar webhead came into view. He was moving fairly quickly toward the gate, dashing toward it with such great speed that any ordinary sniper would have missed. Bullseye was no ordinary sniper. Kim's heart sank with a muted pow from the gun, looking over the crate to find Bullseye no longer smiling.

* * *

Spider-Man saw it coming a mile away. He leaned to the side as the bullet grazed his cheek, sinking into the mud a split second later. He flipped over the fence and yanked himself onto the landing gears of a plane touching down. He felt the wind from several other shots fly past his head and he ducked behind an airline van. "We've been found," Spider-Man said, tapping into the earpiece in his mask. He ducked from a bullet going through the car and whipped a crate through the air at the gunman still a mile away.

"How many?" Luke answered.

"One-" Peter slid under another near miss and jumped as another blast took a chunk out of the ground in front of his knee. "Two-" A loud crack of a hunting rifle told him to jump with the bullet just grazing his inner thigh. "Three, wait-" Spider-Man locked eyes with a man wielding a machine gun with a metal arm, sliding his crate cover in front of him to reveal the blonde, pale man waiting on the other side. "Five, I think-" He twisted and flipped to dodge a spray of bullets, jumping onto an empty commercial flight to see a familiar pair of red and blond hair hiding among the gunmen. "Seven, seven assailants in between me and the pickup site. I can take them, but-" He flipped back to the other side of the plane as another sniper round pierced the plane with ease. "-it'll take me awhile. I'd imagine these guys are past the point of the 'let's talk' banter. I'm running a bit low on webbing, but I'm all set to engage."

"They have made a grave mistake," Luke said mysteriously, leaving Peter with them.

"Hey, Bullseye!" Peter shouted, swinging under and over planes to clear the distance. "Do they call you that because you're colorblind or that you can't aim to save your life like an actual cow?" Spider-Man yanked the sniper rifle from Bullseye's hands and wrapped the barrel into a bow with ease. "Now which one of you likes animal balloons? Kraven, right? Hate to break it to you, but I don't think you can kill this one!"

None of Kraven's shots seemed to land, with him coming dangerously close. "Move," Omega Red said, pushing Kraven aside and aiming his hands at him. Kim and Ron's eyes widened as shining metal tendrils shot from his arms, shoulders, and hands with spikes on the end of them, stabbing at the agile spider left and right. "I like where this is going," Deadpool joked, pulling out his swords.

"Gross, dude!" Ron spat, looking at the tag on his suit.

"What is he talking about?" Kim asked with concern, making Ron's face go red.

"You don't want to know," Ron said with an embarrassed laugh, Rufus backing him up with an affirming nod. He read the name etched on his power suit. "Nightcrawler? What kind of name is that?"

"Press your palms as if you're clenching a dead lion's tail in your hands," Kraven said, "that damn monkey's power will come to you."

"As a grandmaster in monkey kung fu," he said, closing his palms. He blinked, reappearing behind Spider-Man with Rufus falling flat on his back. "I resent-" He looked at his palms, closing them again and reappearing above Spider-Man to throw a drop kick. "Whoa! Kim! Check this out!"

"It's like a kid showing his mom the stick he found on the ground," Spider-Man said, his eyes trying to follow Ron bouncing around him, "but I'm impressed at how fast you're learning how not to suck at teleportation."

"Man, you sound like an angry YouTube commenter at best," Ron said, throwing three spin kicks and blinking behind him to sweep him off his feet.

"No you, times a hundred," Peter said dismissively, throwing him over his shoulder and plastering Rufus to a nearby crate with a ball of webs.

"Kim, you wanna help or what?" Ron grunted, rolling out of the way of a punch that crunched through the asphalt with an imprint of his fist left in it.

She'd have to keep up appearances for now, she told herself. She'd be outnumbered, and possibly stranded by both sides if she didn't do anything at all. She read the name tag on her suit as the six closed in on Spider-Man slowly but surely. "Electro?" she read, clenching her fists. "That's easy enough, I guess," Nothing seemed to happen at first, but within moments her entire body became a living conductor. She didn't have time to bask in the amazing new power she contained, aiming both hands at the Spider and chucking lightning bolts at his feet.

"Are you trying to hit him or not?" Bullseye shouted, diving out of the way with the rest of the squad.

"And you're living up to your name?" Kim retorted, gliding forward from an electrostatic boost through the air to land a nasty shocking punch right in the center of his chest.

Spider-Man's head shook from the blow and his limbs felt like static was running through them, but he'd taken similar blows before.

"Bullseye, keep your distance," Winter Soldier ordered, "Omega, Deadpool, stick with me, Kraven, take the interns and pinch him in."

"Who are you to shout orders at us, Bucky?" Kraven asked.

"Yeah, _Bucky_ ," Spider-Man taunted, rolling between Omega Red's legs and yanking him to the ground with a pair of weblines. He stood up again in the center of all seven opponents. "Getting leadership in this crew? Man, that'll cost you an arm and a leg!" Spider-Man cleared his throat. "It looks like you're halfway there."

"Put one in his shoulder," Winter Soldier said, "then the rest in his mouth."

"Your buddies brainwashed you again, yeah?" Spider-Man said, ignoring the cold sweat on the inside of his costume. This was bad. "Steve's gonna be _pissed_."

Winter Soldier flickered a frown at that name and raised his gun at Spider-Man's head. "You can't punch your way out of this one," Kim said, "don't make them hurt you, Spider-Man."

"Betty said we could bring him in alive," Deadpool said, "but she didn't say by how much."

"I'm fine with keeping him on life support so I can laugh in his face," Kraven said, "because the only one among us who gets to kill the Spider is _me!_ " He rushed forward wielding a machete and Peter slid underneath it, sweeping him to the ground and rising to deliver an uppercut to Bullseye before he could draw his pistols. Several shots grazed Spider-Man's shoulders and arms from Winter Soldier but a solid spin kick threw Bucky off him for a brief moment. Tendrils caught Peter's arms from behind and a third stabbed Peter's hip.

"Now you die!" Omega Red shouted, preparing to stab the other side.

Peter let out a roar in pain, yanking his arms forward and whipping Omega Red through the air. Two shots sunk into his shoulders from Bullseye and Ron blinked in front of him to deliver a palm strike to the face. Spider-Man ducked and returned with a punch that rocketed Ron across the airstrip, turning to Kim and barely dodging another lightning bolt. He lunged toward her, spinning through the air with a high kick that was counted by another tendril that smacked him into the ground. "Can you _not_ ," Spider-Man shouted, gripping the tendril and spinning Omega around.

Kraven and Bullseye jumped over their ally but Bucky and Deadpool weren't as lucky. Ron took Kim's hand and Team Possible hopped over their partner, rushing toward Spider-Man with lightning buzzing on Kim's hands. She barely dodged a kick from the webhead and sent him tumbling back with a lightning fist. "Ron, catch!" Bullseye shouted, tossing him a grenade just a he teleported.

"Ron, no!" Kim screamed, seeing him toss the grenade at Spider-Man's back as he rolled to his feet.

Ron realized what he was throwing as it left his hand and he yelped in regret, reaching for it with his hand closing around nothing with his heart dropping into his stomach. Spider-Man whipped around, gasping at the green egg of death passing by his face. Peter kicked Ron out of the way as the weapon blew up in his face, blowing him back headfirst into the wing of a plane. He hit the ground hard on his chest, his head spinning and pounding from the throbbing pains at both ends. "Sorry, Kim! It was a reflex!" Ron said, catching his best friend's disappointed, raging glare. "I didn't mean to do-"

"Oh, shut up," Deadpool said, "he's not even dead."

Ron and Kim reached him first with the mercenaries quickly running behind them to finish the job. Spider-Man climbed to his feet, revealing his mask had been partially burnt away from the grenade, wild brown hair, fair, cut up skin, and an intelligent brown eye settled in a deep grimace that Kim nor Ron had seen before. "You want the Jade Idol, yeah?" Spider-Man said, his voice settled and serious. "You're going to have to kill me, that's gonna take more effort than a grenade or two."

Ron reached him first, leaping into the air to attack again. "Look, you gotta believe me, I didn't mean to-"

Spider-Man cut the excuse short with a punch that shook Ron's vision and arched the young man over his fist. Ron felt a burning pain from his stomach that traveled through his chest and out his throat as a loud groan that left him rolling on the ground in misery. "And when you make claims like that," Spider-Man said, dodging multiple lightning bolts and tossing Kim aside, "you'd better deliver!"

Peter leaped through the air with his seven opponents surrounding him, preparing to engage them all in a fierce, bloody fight until he could walk away as the last man standing. He felt bad for Kim, a little less for Ron, but the others were going to taste his full fury- if they could ever see him. Black smoke bombs covered the entire airfield and Spider-Man vanished, leaving seven agents with no visual on their target built for stealth. "Where the heck did that come from, Kim?" Ron asked, standing back to back with her conflicted friend.

"Just as blind as you are, Ron," Kim said.

"Didn't Wade build some smoke-vision goggles or something like that?" Ron asked, still finding it hard to stand from the hit.

"The Director took _everything_ ," Kim said, for once starting to feel helpless and lost under pressure, "we haven't had contact with Wade since this started. He's not even answering his regular phone."

"She doesn't trust him either, huh-" Another blow to the same spot shut him up again, with Kim merely getting swept to the ground. Kim looked up at the smoke began to clear, seeing a tall, looming, muscular figure in black with the head of a man with sharp panther ears and piercing purplish silver eyes. He fought like a demon with the enraged spider back to back, holding off the five mercenaries with speed and dexterity that outclassed what Kim thought was ever possible- Spider-Man had been holding back on her.

"I had everything under control," Spider-Man said to the mysterious new challenger putting every mercenary on the ground with swift and fierce attacks. Kim and Ron were astonished by the sight, he stood at easily six and a half feet tall with a jet black jumpsuit crafted from a metal mesh material that bounced every bullet Bullseye shot at him away. He wore a silver teeth necklace embedded in his suit, the teeth long and sharp like a tiger's with a similar big cat motif on his mouthless, intimidating helmet that only allowed the opponent to stare into his eyes. His claws were made out of a shining, silver metal, with the entirety of his suit holding a thin, purple aura.

"You and I have drastically different definitions of 'control,'" he said with Luke's deep, grave, and smooth Xhosan accent.

"Badass hero entrance, knocks all the baddies to the ground to show skills, arrives just as the main character was about to get wrecked," Deadpool rattled off, "can I get a superhero pose?"

The warrior from an unknown land set his sights on the sniper scrambling back, falling into a fighter's stance rolling his shoulders and brandishing his shining claws.

Deadpool scoffed. "Predictable. This writer's a hack."

"I'm not sure who I want to shoot more right now," Kraven grumbled, taking a punch from Spider-Man.

"The one punching you?" Spider-Man answered for him, ducking twin katana slices from Deadpool driving him back.

"The next quip is mine, you dialogue hogging asshole," Deadpool spat.

"No promises," Spider-Man growled, flipping over his opponent and kicking him in the spine.

Deadpool yelped in pain from the crunch through his spine, dropping him to one knee. "H-harder, daddy!"

"That settles it," Peter said, kicking his head so hard that it spun around. Deadpool shot at Peter several times as the spider flipped back. "You are _definitely_ more annoying than me."

"I'll take that," Deadpool grunted, twisting his head back the right way and standing up, his spine clicking back into place, "you owe me a nice congratulations card from Hallmark though, and don't get the cheap ones without the songs in them or else I will fucking shoot your dog."

"I don't have a dog," Peter said.

"Look under your seats!" Deadpool said in his best Oprah impression, charging him again.

"Who is this guy?" Bullseye asked the other three mercenaries trying to pierce his armor.

"I have-" Winter Soldier was interrupted by a harrowing kick. "-no idea, but he's in our way."

"I guess it doesn't matter," Omega chuckled, exchanging equally hard punches left and right.

"Another trophy for my collection, that's what he is!" Kraven blew Luke to the ground with a point blank shotgun blast and Luke rolled to his feet unfazed with a glowing purple ring around the site of impact. He moved fast yet carefully toward Bullseye, dodging bullets left and right until he was right upon the gunman.

"You're an idiot, fighting me at point blank!" Bullseye laughed, switching to his pistols again to turn Luke's chest glowing purple. "Do you know who I am?"

Luke twisted Bullseye's arm and broke several ribs with a single kick, the blow carrying the purple glow on his suit with it. Another punch slammed him into a large crate, with a spin kick sending him right through it. "I don't care," he said dismissively, turning toward his other opponents.

"Switch with Ron, he's just pissing him off," Winter Soldier said, pushing Omega toward Spider-Man.

Omega Red tossed Ron back and the young man came face to face with the new opponent. "You practice Monkey style kung fu, yes?" Luke asked him.

Ron threw a volley of strikes at the Spider's ally, finding him moving just as fast if not faster than his previous opponent. "Has S.H.I.E.L.D been keeping an eye on the temple too?" he asked, getting knocked to the ground. Ron watched Kraven take an elbow strike to the chest and Winter Soldier eat a kick to the face.

"The Jade Idol that bestows your entire order its power," he said, "it is not yours."

"Uh, I think I'd know?" Ron said, blinking behind him and kicking his back as hard as he could.

"If you did, then you would know why I am here," Luke said, throwing Ron through several crates and into the side of a van. "The Jade Idols belong to the Jabari, and the Jabari answer to me."

"Who are you?" Ron asked him, peeling himself from the car. He looked up in his daze, his eyes widening in fear as the lion man appeared as a black phantom with glowering silver eyes, his deadly claws shining under the sun.

"I am King T'Challa, the Black Panther," Luke roared, landing a heel strike on the ground that sent all three of his opponents flying through the air, "and you _all_ will show me respect!"

"All we need now is Kendrick, then we're set!" Deadpool said, firing at the quick spider darting in and out of his three opponents throwing everything they had at him.

"Just shut _up_!" Omega shouted, batting Spider-Man across the airstrip to jump away from the merc with a mouth.

"That is no way to solve our intermarital disputes, Greg," Deadpool said, leading Kim over to the fight.

Spider-Man rolled to his feet, pulling grenade shrapnel from his face below his eye. "What's taking so long, kid?" Tony said from inside his helmet. "The pickup is waiting on you."

"Things got a little heated," Peter said, dodging multiple lightning bolts and letting out a yelp in pain as Deadpool's katana sunk deep through his shoulder. Peter glared at the mercenary in red with seething rage, gritting his teeth and yanking the blade right out. He kicked Deadpool in the chest and flipped onto his head, catching him in a chokehold that snapped his neck with ease. "But Black Panther and I have it under control."

Tony was silent for a while, leaving Peter just as worried as Omega Red's endless tendrils made him. "You and I have drastically different definitions of 'control,'" he said, sounding more scolding than T'Challa.

"Wait, Mister Stark, you don't have to come, I got-" The communication line cut off with a lightning kick to the head that shook him to the core. "Hello?" Peter cursed under his breath, bouncing in between shots from Deadpool.

"It's me," Deadpool answered in an Adele impression, still cracking his neck. "I just came back from the other side, not very impressed."

Omega pierced his knee while Kim punched him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Spider-Man rolled to his feet and ripped one of Deadpool's grenades from his belt with a webline, spinning it around Omega's chest. Spider-Man yanked Kim toward him from the explosion and ran forward, throwing her to the ground with ease and breaking Omega's jaw with a flying knee strike to put him down in pain for a few seconds. "Come on!" Peter shouted, pulling the mercenary to his feet and planting several bone crunching strikes into his head and chest. An explosion of tendrils slapped him away, batting him into the side of a plane where his head crashed through the glass. Peter slid down and off the side dazed, seeing his own hot blood dripping before his eyes.

"Now why'd you go and encourage the crazy bastard, Spidey?" Deadpool said, "the guy's a walking kitchen swiss knife, he'll turn you into a pudding if you're not careful."

"Whose side are you on?" Omega hissed.

"Whoever's got dental insurance," Deadpool said, pulling out his pistol and putting it up to Spider-Man's head. "I wonder if S.H.I.E.L.D.'s is better though, wanna take a look?"

He put his finger on the trigger and the strongest gut feeling Kim had ever experienced threw her forward.

"Sorry, senpai," Deadpool said, pretending to blush, "maybe you will notice me now, from heaven!"

A lightning bolt blew him aside and Omega Red scowled at Kim in disgust. "I almost had him, incompetent little shit!"

Peter rolled to his feet, dodging a blast to the face from Kraven and stunning him with an uppercut. Spider-Man slid behind him with a webline around the hunter's neck and stuck him to the ground, hog-tying Kraven with webs over his eyes and swinging him around like a garbage bag. "Jump," Spider-Man warned the king, swinging Kraven into Winter Soldier and whipping him into the side of a plane with a satisfying crunch of his leg. Black Panther rolled to his feet and swept Winter Soldier to the ground as the fight surrounded to two heroes. Another smoke bomb was thrown down by the king and Omega Red was the focus of a brutal beating from the two young men, driving him to cry out in rage from a black fist to the gut and a red fist to the face.

"I've had enough of this," Omega Red spat, firing a Kraken's worth of tendrils at the two young men fighting for their lives and making the rest of his team run. The tendrils shot through planes and crates, drilling holes through airline vans and crushing them with ease.

Kim looked up at the wave of death rushing toward them in frozen fear, but a webline yanking her away from the fight snapped her back to reality. Kim turned toward Spider-Man and caught his glare, but nodded to him earnestly and followed him. "I'll explain later, if there is one."

"Rufus!" Ron screamed back in terror, seeing the crate his little friend was stuck to get crushed. Rufus was nowhere in sight.

"Omega Red, stand down!" Winter Soldier barked. "Director specifically told you to hold back in case you damage the cargo!"

"Fuck the cargo, Bucky!" Omega roared. "That spider's gonna get what's been coming to him, and if Betty's got anything to say about it then she could just come here and kill him herself, this is why we were hired!"

Ron's jaw dropped, staring up at Winter Soldier quickly leaving him and Deadpool in the dust in surprised rage. "I thought she said to bring him in alive!"

"Some things aren't said for a reason, kid!" Winter Soldier shouted back, leaving Deadpool and Ron to fend for themselves.

"Which is why I kept my mouth shut about this," Deadpool said, shooting Winter Soldier in the back of the leg and making him tumble headfirst into the gate. "Ironic, right?" he laughed, taking Ron by the arm and flipping over the gate.

Ron looked back and winced as Bucky was overrun by the tendrils, vanishing just like his rodent friend. "Damn it, Wade!" Bucky screamed.

"Wha- you- I-" Ron stammered, getting half-dragged behind Kim and the SHIELD heroes.

Deadpool reached into his pants, pulling out Rufus from his underwear and handing the scarred rat back to his owner. "You're welcome, now hurry up! You run like your entire diet is nachos!"

The confusion was overwhelming, but he didn't have time to think about that as a long barrier of black and white suits with guns sprouted in the distance. "Oh no…"

"SHIELD!" one of the agents shouted in a megaphone. "You are operating under an area within GJN jurisdiction and we have this entire airfield surrounded! Any attempt to escape will be met with lethal force! Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Wade Wilson, subdue the belligerents and return to HQ immediately!"

Kim looked back, seeing Omega Red's attack leaving a sharp wall on one end. She looked forward, watching a firing squad aimed at her on the other. She felt a pit in her stomach again as she was being dragged along by Spider-Man, the feeling of uselessness, helplessness, and conflict between what was right and what was safe making her want to split in half to make them fight it out against each other.

"Sir, they're not stopping," a gunman said to the agent with the megaphone.

"Then eliminate them."

"What about Possible?"

The agent scoffed. "She's no longer useful to us."

The gunman nodded, raising his machine gun and leading the others to do the same. "Aim!"

"Uh, Kim?" Ron shouted. "Are they really gonna shoot at us?"

"They wouldn't-"

"Fire!" the gunman shouted.

Black Panther leapt in front of the group, throwing a purple bead that formed a shield around the running agents. One bullet slipped through before the shield fully formed and Ron gasped in pain, falling flat on his back and screaming in pain from the long round lodged in his shoulder. "Ron!" Kim shouted back, watching helplessly as Spider-Man whipped around and yanked Ron to him with weblines.

Kim looked at the pain in her friend's face and the blood running down his arm, soaking his suit red. Rufus sat on his other shoulder to try to comfort him. The pit of conflict that weighed her down shot up her throat and through her head in a swelling of rage and regret and lightning surged through her arms. Spider-Man yelped from the shock and let go, watching Kim aim two beams of lightning straight at the firing squad. "Kim, what are you doing?!" Ron said. " _We're_ GJN agents too!"

"We're heroes first," Kim said, with a new resolve and an old determination Ron saw when she was absolutely certain of a fact. "Agents second!"

The agents in the front line hopped back, looking at the scorched ground and back up at the former part time agent with all sights on her. "Sir? Do we fire again? Betty told us not to hurt-"

"She failed her mission, now she attacked her fellow agents," the leader said, "it's clear as to what her convictions are now, and I _will_ protect my men!"

Kim growled in fury and leaped through the air, her body becoming alive with electricity. "They don't need to die, no one does," she said, channeling lightning through her foot and slamming it down in the mud, "but if that's the goal, then I _can't_ stand by and let it happen!"

An electric pulse shot through her foot and up, sending an electric spray across twenty feet into the agents and slamming them into the vans behind them. "Wade! Take her down!" the lead agent barked.

"Sorry, agent with the megaphone!" Deadpool said. "But it's time for yet another plot twist that'll surely knock your socks off and possibly the socks of whoever's reading this shit!" He leaped through the air with a katana in one hand and a pistol in the other, diving toward the agents with a wolfish grin under his mask. "I'm going to shove my fist so far up your tight ass that I'll work your mouth like a puppet for everybody watching at-" Deadpool gasped, cutting one agent's hand off and kicking a second gunman away. "This is rated T, sorry everyone."

"Wade's a double agent!" a GJN agent cried. "Take him down!"

Another burst of power shot right in the center of the growing chaos, with the sound of a chopper roaring overhead. "That's enough, all of you," Tony's voice said from the dust, revealing himself in his full armor glistening crimson and gold bouncing bullets away left and right. "Spider-Man, you and I are going to talk, revisit a couple things we decided to put away when you told me that you were _certain_ everything was going to be _just_ fine."

Peter hung his head in silence, hefting Ron and the backpack. "I-iron Man?!" one agent stammered, nearly falling back with his gun.

"Yeah, hi, you do realize that you're shooting at kids four months out of high school, right?" Iron Man said with Stark's impatient snarkiness. "Jarvis, put up shields and get them out of here."

The entire team huddled together as a giant, red ring of steel from the sky crashed the ground around them, completely impervious to bullets. The chopper overhead without a pilot started to hover over the ring as the agents scrambled to take it out of the air. An air gurney attached to rocket thrusters lowered into the center of the ring and Spider-Man carefully laid Ron on it. Kim looked down at her injured friend, still caught up in her rage.

"The artifact drop is here," Tony said, covering his face with the golden steel grimace. "As soon as Omega Red gets taken down and we retrieve Bucky, get on it, and it'll take all of you home. Kim, take Ron and get up there. The four of us will handle the rest."

"But I can-"

"You're done, kid," Tony told her bluntly, seeing her bruised, scratched, and shaking with adrenaline. "Omega Red's above your paygrade. Get to the chopper." Iron Man took off with T'Challa scaling the shield tower and Deadpool followed with a grappling hook.

Spider-Man and Kim caught each other's eyes again, with the heroine receiving a nod as Peter shot into the air. "So, you were working with us all along?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, pretty convincing, right?" Deadpool asked with a laugh, ducking and dodging bullets as they hopped back over the fence and surrounded a fuming Omega Red.

"You stabbed me, shot me and shot at me, and let me nearly get killed by a grenade to the face," Peter growled, diving out of the way as a blue beam of light and energy shot from his hands and arc reactor to blow Omega aside and melt the ground.

"I had to look the part, webhead," Deadpool said, "and you snapped my neck, twice!"

"Because I thought you were trying to kill me!" Spider-Man said, webbing up Omega's legs and swinging him to the ground.

"You were very convincing," Black Panther said, snatching a grenade from Deadpool's belt and crushing it in his hand to turn the entire suit purple, "but you could have blown your cover earlier in the fight."

Omega took the right hook from T'Challa, spinning around with the force of a grenade centered in his temple. "I wasn't sure how things were going to play out," Deadpool said, "plus a guy's gotta eat, they were paying out the ass for me to pick off all eight of your legs!"

Omega Red stood up, stumbling toward Iron Man and taking a ferrous fist to the chest that knocked him flat on his back. Tony and the other agents stood over him. "Stay down," Tony ordered, the high pitched humming of his energy blaster on his hand acting as a warning.

Omega droned out a groan and lifted his head, giving into the pain and passing out. "I'll take Bucky boy back to base," Deadpool said, strolling over to the hibernating Winter Soldier and slinging him over his shoulder. "See you at the chopper!"

Peter, Tony, and T'Challa rushed toward the gate, dodging and ducking the agents' guns as they shot through the airfield.

"This is _exactly_ why I didn't want you to leave New York," Tony scolded, knocking over a squadron of agents by simply moving through them.

Peter took them out with agility and speed, appearing to them only as a red and blue blur. "It's my responsibility, Mister Stark. I moved here to get an education, an opportunity you would have never passed-"

"That isn't going to matter if you're _dead_ , alright?" Tony said with angry concern. "I had to talk your aunt down to even get you here. I told you to stay low, that I would take care of SHIELD, and more importantly to stay out of the way."

"What, was I supposed to let the GJN find others like me and do who knows what to them?" Spider-Man said. "AIM was just as bad as these guys, where was the worry for me from you when I was getting shot at then?"

"I was there to protect you!" Tony shouted.

"I don't need anyone's protection!" Peter shouted back, hopping back into the shield ring where Kim was climbing up the rope ladder alongside Ron's floating gurney. Kim looked down, the realization of what she had done hitting her in the face as Betty herself glared up at her from within the chaos of her own agents with such hatred that it filled the young woman with dread. Betty turned away, vanishing among the black suits without a word. She wasn't the only one who was sitting in hot water, however. "It got out of hand today," Spider-Man said. "I admit that, but I had-"

"Newsflash, if Black Panther wasn't on standby, Kraven would have been eating you over a campfire," Iron Man said, "you weren't ready to leave."

"Weren't ready?" Peter said in disbelief, swinging himself into the chopper while T'Challa simply jumped in. "I'm not a kid anymore," Peter said, "I already told Director Fury that I wanted to stay independent while I was here, like you asked. I didn't expect GJN to put me on its most wanted list, and I'm fairly certain I can take myself off without you holding my hand!"

"Who built that suit you're wearing?" Tony said, helping Kim and Ron into the chopper while Deadpool scrambled up the ladder with Bucky over his shoulder.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Mister Stark-"

" _Who_ built that suit?" Tony asked again with more force.

"I've shown you time and time again that I'm capable of-"

"This isn't Vulture, or Hobgoblin, not even Loki, this is an entire organization dedicated to killing people just like you, and you were too headstrong to ask for help early on. Nick might have been covering for you before to try to let you figure this out on your own, but when I see that suit, I know that in the end, _I_ am responsible for you. What if somebody had died today? Your classmate down there is bleeding out, if that shot was any more to the right, he would have died."

"How is that-"

"The daughter of one of my closest friends from college is out here fighting you with an organization planning on wiping you out, and you refused to let anybody back home figure that out until we found you caught up in your own web. Thank god he didn't die today, but if that kid died, that would have been on you. But if you had died?" Tony's suit unfolded around him, fitting inside a suitcase that slid neatly in between the seats. His stare was cold yet feeling, twiddling a pen between his fingers to curb some of the anxiety. "That would have been on me. You weren't ready for today. Until this mess you're in gets sorted out, I'm putting you back on SHIELD's registry directly under my supervision."

"You can't do-"

"This isn't about what I can or cannot do," Tony scolded, "all you had to do was deliver the drop and get out of there, not instigate a fight with a secret organization as soon as you unpacked your dorm, and until that fight is over, I'm going to be watching you like Clint, got it?" He turned to the distressed, scared, and visibly shaken Kim. "What are you doing with mercenaries, Kim?" he asked, his voice softer but more disappointed.

Kim wanted to cry. "At first, I thought it was the right thing to do. Ron and I, we both did."

"You guys can go all over the world, I don't care how much experience you think you have, all three of you are still kids," Tony said, "there's a lot of stuff happening right now that you have yet to understand, and it's so easy to just blindly follow whatever you feel is best or protects you, but guess what? You're no longer dealing with guys who wanna take out a teenage girl, you're dealing with guys that can take on the world and have a fighting chance. Why is your dad even letting you do this? You shouldn't be out there, fighting those guys in the first place."

"How was I supposed to know you were going to show up with a helicopter?" Kim snapped back. "I've fought evil ever since I was in middle school, and-"

"I know exactly who you've fought, and believe me, you haven't truly fought anybody yet," Tony said. "Spider-Man cleared out your entire rogue's gallery in a month, and he's your age. Betty was using you as a pawn to gauge how tough she'd have to fight, and you helped answer that question exactly. You shouldn't have been out there, and now that you've betrayed them, they're going to be on you twice as hard as they will him."

Kim was silenced by that, looking down at Ron and out at the open chopper doors to process what she had done. The GJN knew everything about her, who she hung out with, her family, everything she loved, if Tony was right, would be in their crosshairs. Dread washed over her and she sat forward in the chair, burying her face in her hands. "No, Ron," Kim said, nearly sobbing, "what- what have I done?!"

"Not always, will what is right be clear to you," T'Challa said, "but you had the volition to push forward despite everyone moving against you. Do not think of what happened today as a loss, Kim Possible, because you gained something more valuable." He pulled out two beads that glowed black and purple, attaching them to Kim's suit. Like a magnet, thousands of tiny cameras and earpieces shot from the suit and onto the beads. Kim looked around nervously at her company that saved Ron and kept her from Betty's wrath, seeing everyone she had considered an enemy up until now debugging her suit. "Now, the communicator."

Kim reluctantly pulled it out, waiting for Betty's grimace to pop up at any moment. She was right to be worried, but this time, Betty stared right into Tony and T'Challa's favor. "Tony Stark-"

"We have the idol and your top agent," Iron Man said mockingly, "I'd say we're going 2-0 right now- maybe we'll get the suits next?"

"Tell Kim Possible that she's fired-"

"No longer yours to control. Farewell, Betty," T'Challa finished before her, tapping the bead to the screen. He handed it back to Kim. "Give it a moment." The screen went black with an uncertain static, before blinking back to life with a familiar voice.

"Hey, Kim!" the short, chubby, and young, freckled African American boy with dark skin, short, wavy black hair, and bright brown eyes on the other end of the video chat wearing a plain blue tee shirt said excitedly. "I've been trying to hack back into your comms channel for months! What happened? I mean, I heard about Spidey, but the GJN kept shutting me out!"

Kim sighed in relief, hearing Ron chuckling on the gurney. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you, Wade, but," Kim's happiness faded fast. "Things are complicated right now. I don't want you dragged into this too."

"Thetha igama lakho," T'Challa said, as if nearly demanding it.

Wade stopped mid sentence nearly biting his tongue. "S-sorry?" he stammered.

" _Thetha igama lakho_ ," Black Panther said more insistently.

Kim watched Wade hurriedly dash from the computer panels that surrounded him booting up. He darted back into the camera. "Be right back."

Kim looked up at T'Challa with the same shock on her face present on Tony, Spider-Man, and Deadpool as well. "He's one of yours?"

"The world is much bigger than you know," T'Challa said, "I too have just begun working with SHIELD."

"Who said I'm working with you?" Kim asked, feeling overwhelmed.

"Sorry, kid," Deadpool said, "but you don't just screw over the GJN like that and walk away. Until this settles down, thanks to your buddy with half his face blown off over there, we have to keep you and your family safe."

"How can we," Ron grunted painfully, "trust you? You're all agents too!"

"I'll take care of that," Tony said. "I got into the hero business to privatize world peace, to stop agencies like GJN and even the government from getting in the way of doing what's right. Our director already has the heads up on your situation, and, _apparently_ , our new contact here already has a liaison for you."

"How do you know Wade," Ron asked, "Mister…"

"T'Challa," Black Panther finished for him. "I cannot tell you who we are, not yet, but I have watched every man in this helicopter for quite a long time. Your exploits at such a young age were of interest to me, thus I installed a set of eyes to keep watch on your activities, to make sure you stayed a beacon of light to the rest of the world."

"I'm back, Kim," Wade said, half-pulling a tall, African American woman Kim assumed to be his mom into the computer room. "Ixesha, umama!" he said in a language she had never heard him speak before.

Kim turned the screen to the king. "I'm so confused…"

Ron turned his head weakly to the screen, watching Wade and the woman cross their arms in an X over their chests. "Wakanda ngonaphakade!" they declared, receiving the same symbol from the king himself.

"I guess he'll be watching your professional operations until you're settled with us," Tony said, "as for Spider-Boy and I, we'll be in the area, him at least for the next three years."

Spider-Man scoffed, leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes. "Now you're just being petty."

"I'll be contacting you shortly, maybe our director too," Tony said. "Your high profile status makes your family an instant target, thus I'll drop by to let your parents know what the sitch is." Tony chuckled. "It's a good catchphrase."

"He did a thing!" Deadpool exclaimed.

"I don't want me nor my family caught between what's going on with you and the GJN, not anymore," Kim said, "my job is saving the world, not acting as a pawn for a man in a suit."

"And you don't need to be," Tony said. "Superheroes have other jobs, for some, like me, it is their job, but that's besides the point. We don't expect you to fully commit to us right off the bat, no one does. You're in danger, Kim. We have to keep you and Ron from feeling Betty's retaliation, because she doesn't pull any punches against people on her list."

Kim looked at her kimmunicator again, Wade's smile giving her some confidence in her new company. "I'll need some time to think, to process all of this."

Tony nodded. "Of course. For now, we're taking your dynamic duo and webhead home."

"Do you have the idol?" T'Challa asked.

Peter nodded, handing him the backpack. T'Challa opened it to reveal a bright green glow that the idol exuded when it touched his hand. "It only glows when it's around its creator or master, yes, Ron?"

Ron nodded. "You didn't explain your role in that very well, or maybe I got hit in the head too…"

"You will learn that in time," T'Challa said, "but now I must return this to where it rightfully belongs."

"Kim, Spidey, I'll drop you off now. I'll take Ron to a hospital and have my guys keep him company until he's discharged. I'll see you soon, Possible." The helicopter landed on top of the dorm building and Kim was let off, looking up bewildered at the insignia of the eagle behind the American flag shield as copter took off again.

They continued to fly until they were over the city again, looking down on it moving along fine and unknowing of what was about to transpire. "This is my stop," Peter said, walking to the edge of the copter doors.

"We'll keep in touch," Iron Man said just before he was going to jump out, "and kid?"

"Stay out of danger, I know," Peter said, at least happy that he cared.

"Oh, no, I was just going to tell you to, uh," Tony cleared his throat. "Your fly was down the entire fight."

Peter simply sighed. "See you later, Mister Stark," he said, diving off the side into the evening city.

"Call me!" Deadpool shouted, getting slapped in the back of the head by T'Challa.

"You think he'll be alright?" T'Challa asked. "From what I've seen, although he is quite versatile, holding his punches over that girl and Ron hindered his effectiveness. If there is ever another moment like that in the field, he may not return."

Iron Man leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms while staring at Ron and Rufus. "Yeah, he'll be fine. I was worried about him coming here at first, being the _only_ one and all, and I was right to be. Now that they've hurt one of our own, I wouldn't be surprised if we'll be crawling up and down the West Coast in a week."

"You are a genius," T'Challa said, "but sometimes short-sighted."

"Excuse me?"

"He is not the only one," he said. "Although not without ulterior motives, a movement fronted by a woman whose name I won't say freely has begun to combat the GJN in their territory. They will be pinched, if the size of this organization is as large as my contact says it is."

"What 'ulterior' motives?" Tony asked.

T'Challa smirked. "They do not particularly care for Spider-Man either."

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. "We certainly have our work cut out for us."

T'Challa chuckled. "Then let's not waste any time. Wade, your thoughts?"

They turned toward the double agent, wanting to smack him again watching him play a fighting game on his DS. "Oh, sorry. Wasn't listening. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's very interesting and frankly I'm just glad to be here taking part."

T'Challa turned to Tony. "Are you sure we need him?"

* * *

 **LONG ASS CHAPTER BBS, CLASS HAS KILLED MY TIME BUT I AM NOT DEAD**

 **WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE CHAPTER? HOW WILL KIM DEAL WITH HER CHANGE OF ALLEGIANCE? WHAT ABOUT RON? WILL BETTY RETALIATE AGAINST HER FORMER ALLY? ENTER BLACK PANTHER AND DEADPOOL! WADE'S /TRUE/ ORIGIN WILL BE DISCUSSED LATER. IRON MAN DIDN'T HAVE MUCH OF AN ACTION-PACKED INTRO, BUT THAT'S FOR LATER ;)**

 **REVIEW FAM**


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